A week ago I saw one of these handsome ctenucha moths alight on my native holly. Today the light was just right to take a photograph of it on the native holly blossoms. These pollinators are the unsung heroes of our Thanksgiving harvest of red-orange holly berries along our roadsides. I do not care for its common name of "wasp moth" but it is a little surprising looking. My poem of last year bears out my impression that things are almost disconcertingly early this summer. I did see a fritillary this week, cicadas are singing and the first white aster is nodding in the shadows, so here we are. High summer. Make the most of it.
Wasp Moth Encounter
With a wealth like coins
the silver spangling of a fritillary’s underwing
quite seduced me
until I had sat
still among the tall white asters
long enough for
a Zen abbot of a moth
Ctenucha Rōshi
to rearrange its sooty silken robe
collar bright above the dusky panels
saffron surprise
ink-black the eyes and probing sensitivities
– not the emerald shoulders
but the subtlety of restraint
pale whisper lines on gray
an August afternoon’s
enlightenment
while distantly
cicada sang.
With a wealth like coins
the silver spangling of a fritillary’s underwing
quite seduced me
until I had sat
still among the tall white asters
long enough for
a Zen abbot of a moth
Ctenucha Rōshi
to rearrange its sooty silken robe
collar bright above the dusky panels
saffron surprise
ink-black the eyes and probing sensitivities
– not the emerald shoulders
but the subtlety of restraint
pale whisper lines on gray
an August afternoon’s
enlightenment
while distantly
cicada sang.
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