Cecropia
Originally written July 2015, self-published online November 2021
With wings spread
The Cecropia moth wanes
In the glinting sunlight
Of a shadowspread pasture
Its eyespots glow
Like embers in the dying night
The passionate secrets of time
Lost deep in its spellbound design
The forest is guarded
By elvenkind forces
Some standing as men
Some soft like a moth
Its eyes are drops of dew
Its legs are nimble and quick-witted
Its antennae plumaceous
Its mind sewn deep into the ancient wood
When man comes wayfaring
The forest breaks for daylight
The fires of the writhing deep come forward
The moth cannot sustain
It flees to the outer world
Where no one grants it peace
For where once there was a forest
Now there is only ash
And though the fields of time are rife with red fire
Still does the emberborn moth lie in the quiet