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Monday Meditations
To rake or not to rake: that is the question. I leave the leaf litter, because... hummingbird moths. This poem first appeared in the gorgeous Briar Cliff Review in 2023, sadly its last year in print.
HUMMINGBIRD MOTH
after Eavan Boland
On a late May afternoon she appears,
Hemaris, bee-hawk moth, snowberry
clearwing. She is here, not having come
lazily along, but a sudden apparition.
She is chimera—part heart-melting
hummingbird, her fantail waggling,
rolled tongue unfurled to dip into
bee balm, million bells, phlox,
and part nightmare, fringed antennae
searching, yellow cape of fur, scaled
wings nearly transparent. She
will stick her larvae to the underside
of honeysuckle leaves, leave her young
to drop on the grass, wrap themselves
in silk, wait for spring. I am elbow-deep
in a thicket of tomato vines, knees
clicking like cards on bike tires, when
her hovering stirs a vibration along
my spine. Like her, my season here
is short. We will both beat our wings
to exhaustion, and when too soon
glorious adults emerge from torn
cocoons, we will fall down, she and I,
burrow beneath the leaf litter and sleep.