The Moth In the Shower
The Moth in the Shower
1 A Moth
The short life of this delicate creature
whose chosen a path of chasing bright lights
to understand the danger of such sights,
is experience always a teacher?
This grand design of flight evolved in time,
these perfect delicate paper forewings,
a memory of flutter flying brings
within the showers steam, this humid clime.
Somehow this moth made it from my back door,
from light to light, examined all the rooms
to end within these marbled reflections.
So transfixed on chasing every pleasure
will find itself upon watery tombs,
honest indication of attractions.
2 A Moth’s Lullaby
A halo forms around sudden Heaven,
the moth wings will trill New Guinea love songs,
such songs, saving songs to heal our wrongs,
before a deathly lullabies sweet grin.
I stand in shower watching your mistake
just as incapable of saving us.
I find myself empty, superfluous,
trying to reach the light, our lives at stake.
All I have to offer is a poem
written after a thousand afterlives
just words on paper pointing towards wound.
So close to heaven singing out my psalm
in rhythm enumerating our dives
on spider webs that seem perfectly tuned.
3 Tabernacle of Moth
Within this porcelain Tabernacle
I take time from scrubbing the dirt from skin
for some temporary contemplation
before we see the lights last spectacle.
Shiny objects killed certain parts of me
along with wooden wings held fast with wax
or foreign shores secured on wall with tacks,
flying too close to sun over calm sea.
Unlike this moth I get a thousand tries,
a thousand times to find meaning and rise,
in ruins find the meaning of the fight,
let fireflies go free from our locked jars.
4 In Conclusion
Even though I have chosen things wholesome
and family focus this time around
just like the Moth near light I will be found,
a sight soon finds a way to make me numb.
This insect reflex always brings me down,
whether wealth or love, attractions stay strong
enough to blind my soul to any wrong,
to move farther and farther from the town.
Who knows whether its better to be the Moth
or I, this still, dumbfounded observer
both caught by a light we cannot explain.
I think about the color of washcloth
and how it matches this sparse decor,
then watching water swirl down bathtub drain.
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I have been sitting at my desk watching the snowfall and I focus on the individual snowflakes. How fleeting the life of those beautiful crystal-like flakes. They live long enough to add to the beauty of a blanket covering the ground then melt into the earth to eventually return to the cycle of life – just as the moth does and as we do. So many lifetimes we go through in order to learn and grow spiritually. You express these thoughts very nicely, Jamie, and it is a pleasure to read them. Well done.
Very delightful and most creative and it was a delight to read these wonderful poems in honor of the moth. Like the moths we are often attracted to a bright flame that might or might not be best to approach as life goes on,
What wonderful reflections you offer here, Jamie. It seems a poor moth has such a fleeting life and one false move will often prove fatal as it chases the elusive light. Great poetry. Yes, we are often like a moth but usually we get more chances to achieve our goals. They may still prove fruitless in the end however.
Thank you Phyllis, Rasma, and John. Jamie