this wee little moth

(it’s only as wide as my thumbnail)

stopped by to set for a time on the back porch railing yesterday.i looked it up and they officially named it the ‘mournful thyris’.

perhaps the black edges of its intentionally tattered wings

reminded someone of the old mourning tradition

 of rending one’s clothes to show the depth of grief?

and though i’m usually all for factual accounts,

in this case i want a little more fantasy to the story, please.

it’s so obvious to me that this little moth is hip.

he is wearing black from head to toe with fashionably worn edges.

also easy to see he’s an artist

by the liberally splattered white paint droplets.

probably he’s in the middle of creating a piece that explores negative space.

i can almost see the large, dark canvas in his moss lined studio

where he’s using that white paint to define the blanks

in his interpretation of figure-ground reversal.

the only move he made as i took these pictures

was a slight fluttering of his wings.

it looked like he was resting,

that the energy he’d used on the still wet painted canvas

had drained him and he’d flown off looking for renewed inspiration.

i felt a twinge of sadness that his ‘stroll’

had deposited him on my bland and uninspiring

stark white porch railing … and then i saw it.

there was no need for him to travel even one wingspan farther,

because he was standing still on that very same

uninspiring stark white porch rail

and soaking in the most

gorgeous rays

of the early evening grey sky light.

the kind of light that has inspired painters for decades.while i, so caught up in the mundane daily repetition of things,

would have missed that light altogether

but for being reminded to look by

the ordained visit of this

tiny little moth.

so they can call him ‘mournful thyris’

or technically ‘pseudothyris sepulchralis’

but i will always recall him as a reminder that the created world

has a glorious story to tell, if only i will listen.

‘moth’ taken from 4:19-20 of job.