The maker of red berries

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.

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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.