IMPERIAL MOTH

  

Within an earthen chamber they pupate,

Then crawl toward the light in their next phase

As horned and dotted caterpillars, lured

By sunshine beckoning them to leaves and warmth--

To die again one day, having stretched out

Their speckled yellow wings marked purple gray,

When still they are attracted to the Sun

Though born to be nocturnal.

                                               They are fooled

Not by the simple daylight, but by signs

Illuminated by man’s artifice: 

Street lights and floods that stay on through the day.

 

I saw a moth one sunny afternoon

Upon the wall of a convenience store,

Where driven by the glare of gaudy bulbs

He’d flapped his five inch wingspan through the dark

And worshipped there well past the break of dawn.

Displayed so well in all his panoply,

Did he become the morsel of some crow?

For I have read that where such sleepless light

As lured him is abundant, his species

Has fast become a rare phenomenon.