Fairy Tale Of The Moth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fairy Tale Of The Moth

(a 55)

 

 

 

In the Amazon there's a moth
who lives by drinking the night-tears
of sleeping birds.

By day she's folded asleep
in deep green chambers where purple frogs
sweat pearls of poison.

If she dreams, it's only by accident.
At dawn the birds fly up, eyes
open for song, tears given

without intent or knowledge
as I give mine, silver life
to the mouths of memories.

 

March, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted for WGWL at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: Gorgone macarea is the moth referred to here, one of several species of Lepidoptera who pratice lachryphagy for survival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image credits: Blue Morpho Butterfly, 1865 © Martin Johnson Heade 

Great Peacock Moth, 1889 © Vincent Van Gogh 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inflection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inflection

 

 We drew the breaths 

of butterflies in high June,

beings never still

whose feet are small

as whimpers in our sleep,

light as the gauze of

a first-hour dream

until it falls,

a blood-splashing guillotine.

Butterflies

know nothing of blood

except the blood of flowers and that

is what we sipped, flitting from one to

the next because life must

spread or be stilled;

we never thought we

could ever be stilled

for we had no thoughts,

so new, so insubstantial

and ingenuous were we, certainly

not one that whispered

"Here is the starry inflection of

Love's extinction event," as we deep-

drank our liquor from the meadows

drying beneath us, even as the vapor

of your breath closing to me

dried on my lips

 

in a sigh, tenuous and bright

as wind-floated pollen,

your mouth soon withdrawn

to suckle the next flower's mouth

until flowers and memory and all their savor

 too were gone.

 

August 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Tipped at

desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Untitled(Landscape With Butterflies) 1956 ©Salvador Dali

Butterflies ©Odilon Redon