A Moth’s Digression
It was only a lunate zale moth, that hole
on my study wall.
I placed my hand over it, then slowly
slid it shut
until the cupped darkness fluttered
and my deaf palm
felt a whispering inside. Outside,
slowly opening its cell,
I saw the moth’s mantle of fur, the soft
chips of dust its wings brushed on
the Zen garden groove of fingertips.
A nudge and it flew, ascending
until a barn swallow hit it mid-flight,
leaving a brief hole in the air.
— Ken Craft
This poem appeared in my first collection, The Indifferent World (FutureCycle Press, 2016).