Moth in April

Now as they do so, the athletic heart

Throbs within them, under cashmere and cambric:

"Vermin," they think, imagining stamping us out.

MOTH IN APRIL

Can I concentrate, can I

Let my eyes and mind settle

On the bug

That has settled on the wood

Knob of the canvas

Garden chair?

The moth has to be thinking.

Its moth face frowns.

The hair-feelers, black-tipped, stand level.

It jumps and flies and I have

No words to describe its pin-jag track.

It flies away from the knob and back,

My fuzzy likeness,

My brother, seizing me with melancholy-

I'm on edge, is it the coffee

And not enough sleep?

Is it the sense of all I cannot see

And cannot feel, and will die without knowing?

Charles and Maggie's garden,

Berkeley, April 1982