Everyday Magic: Eulogy to a Moth
This moth lived for a couple of days on the hall ceiling. It had thick, fuzzy legs that flared out so that it seemed it was wearing miniature bellbottoms.
Today I found it on the bathroom floor, unmoving, just inside the doorway from the hall. It lay in a position that suggested it had simply let go, at the end, and fluttered down to the floor. I picked it up gently and scanned it on my flatbed scanner, reverent of its simple brown beauty, its large eyes and soft powdery wings and fine antennae.
What would it be like to be a moth? An absurd question, perhaps, in the most formal sense of the word: but one that is tugging at me today nonetheless.
Surely the human propensity for imagining gods and aliens is driven, in part, by the presence of gods and aliens around us every day.
Christopher Barzak said,
April 27, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
I so know what you’re talking about here.
It’s really gorgeous and otherworldly.
beth said,
April 28, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
Of all people, you would understand this post.
Maureen McQ said,
April 28, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
Beth, lovely post. Lovely moth. It scanned so beautifully.
(I love the bellbottom image.)
beth said,
April 28, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
Thanks, Maureen!
(The bellbottom image came because Lil looked up at the moth in horror — “What IS that? It looks evil!” — and I realized she thought its forelegs were huge pincers. I said, “No! It’s just wearing bellbottoms!”)