Before unlocking the front door
I stood watching this moth fling
itself against my porch-light bulb.
His flailing wings imply a frantic
need for light. I know the feeling.
Apparently this moth believes
that on this silent summer night,
finally, somehow, after traveling
through a seemingly endless
darkness HE has somehow
managed to reach the sun,
all 60 brilliant watts of her.
I refer to this moth as a HE
because this moth just has
to be a HE. This moth has
the balls to fly directly and
boldly at a white hot burning
bulb. HE is drawn to the light,
HE rockets toward the light.
He is full speed ahead, fearlessly
charging into this intense,
illuminating, sever, relentlessly
dazzling light. It is as if this moth
has an irresistible need to enter
the light, to merge with the light,
to become the light, to BE light.
I found him dead on the porch
the following morning. I interrupted
a requiem mass of ants in jittery
procession as they carry this hero of
brightness to his final, and no doubt
delicious resting place. What HE
found is what we all find: a light that
is bright, hot, extraordinarily real and
yet undeniably and absolutely artificial
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