Breezy and cool. A brown moth flutters into the last of the dame’s-rocket. Sunlight glints on the isinglass wings of a cicada heading for the treetops.
moths
The rain goes on and on for hours. I watch a drenched squirrel at the end of a branch lose his grip on a walnut. A small brown moth circles my face.
Overcast. Sunrise is when the crows wake up. A large brown moth tucks itself into the eaves.
Dawn passes too quickly; already the cardinal is attacking his image in the window. Three moth wings rest on the arm of my chair.
Unseasonably warm at dawn, trees swaying, and I have to shake my head hard to dispel a vision of charred trunks and smoking hillsides. A pale moth flutters past.
Rain thickens into downpour, but a very small moth continues to fly back and forth. The evening primroses remain half closed.
Sunrise past, the last of the night-time moths are fluttering up under the leaves. A sound like the forest drawing a breath.
Thin fog. A lone blue jay’s querulous call. A tiny white moth flies past, its wings a blur. One expects to hear the purr of a tiny motor.
A downy woodpecker in the spicebush hangs from a silk moth cocoon, trying to reach the pupa, but the soft stuff defeats her hammer and nail.
Overcast and cool. A small, strikingly orange and black moth flutters around the house, and I try unsuccessfully to catch it in my hand.
Sunny and cool. A small brown moth flies past, fluttering hard against the wind. From the interstate to the west, the whine of a speed bike.
Cloud cover thin as muslin sheet; the woods are anything but gloomy. A small brown moth flutters purposefully past. The neighbor’s chainsaw.
Overcast, cool and quiet. The muffled crows of the neighbor’s rooster, still inside the coop. A small, brown moth lands on my shoulder.
An underwing moth rests under the roof; I get out the guide. Could it be Charming, Girlfriend, The Bride, Oldwife, Sad or Sordid Underwing?