Pink Sphinx Moth, 2007. My once in a lifetime shot.
MOTHS
By Eavan Boland
Tonight the air smells of cut grass.
Apples rust on the branches. Already summer is
a place mislaid between expectation
and memory.
This has been a summer for moths.
Their moment of truth comes well
after dark.
Then they reveal themselves at our
window-
ledges and sills as a pinpoint. A glimmer.
The books I look up about them are
full of legends:
ghost-swift moths with their dancing
assemblies at dusk.
Their courtship swarms. How some kinds may steer by the moon.
The moon is up. The back windows are wide open.
Mid-July fills the neighborhood. I stand by the hedge.
Once again they are near the
windowsill---
fluttering past the fuscia and the
lavender,
which is knee-high, and too blue to
warn them
they will fall down without knowing
how
or why what they steered by became,
suddenly,
what they crackled and burned
around. They will perish---
I am perishing---on the edge and at
the threshold of
the moment all nature fears and tends
towards:
the stealing of the light. Ingenious facsimile.
And the kitchen bulb which beckons
them makes
my child’s shadow longer than my own.
From:
“New Collected Poems” by Eavan Boland, pages 220, 221
___________________
My life is discombobulated and not by a hurricane, but by divorce & domestic violence. My heart goes out to the people in Texas and Florida who have experienced Mother Nature's wild forces. I pray for you all to come through this as better people, realizing that life is not about stuff, but about, well, life. It's what I pray for myself, also. xo, Marion
1 comment:
it's difficult to know what to anticipate, isn't it? that which to fear is there. and that which is pure joy persists. simultaneously. or they take turns.
we practice breathing. and falling. and when we're lucky - flying.
deep breaths. may we all find our way through the eye of the needle and manage.
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