Advent Moths

I’m sure there is a perfectly logical explanation: there always is.

But I say: never let science get in the way of a good metaphor, never let logic override the happily coincidental.

These moths started appearing, on windows and glass doors, sometime last week. Any place there was a source of light, they were there. Little wisemen following their star.

Where did they come from? Why now?

It has been unseasonably warm, no killing frost, and here we are already into December. The ground, perhaps, has issued them, birthed them, in this strange season. They come from a warm November: harbinger.

They come seeking light and, it would seem, warmth. They gather, like a congregation, on the glass, Wings spread, praying as angels must pray.

Terror and beauty. Revulsion is the first reaction when the lens exposes this presence. But then: amazement. These wings, veined instruments of flight. Light, weightless. Unmakeable. Only created. The billions of accidents and permutations that have led to this moment. This brief, brief moment.

Soon, the frost.

And death.

Only to rise, from the ground, next year.