During a warm summer twilight yesterday, I was watching a nine-year-old boy observe an inchworm looping along a black-eyed Susan in a friend's garden. He watched it for a long minute from a distance of six inches before slipping his finger under a petal where the creature was moving until it crawled completely away from the flower and onto him. The boy counted the inchworm's three pairs of posterior legs and explained to me that its lack of middle legs causes it to move as it does. He let it inch across his fingers another several minutes before finally returning it to the black-eyed Susan.
I describe this brief but pleasurable crepuscule moment to reiterate the importance of observation in cultivating writing skills. Ernest Hemingway mentioned its value. And who observes with guileless acuity and imagination more than a child? For this reason, I tell writing students to observe with all their senses what they perceive. They will have much to write about.
