Like a Moth to the Flame
If moths ever loved, they'd only love for a night.
You'd never let a life to waste.
Be it a man,
Nor a child.
•
Nor the moths which frolic the night
And every one of our lights.
•
"Leave them be, Kiku.
I need my sleep, just as much as
You
Need yours", I grumbled.
•
You shook your head,
And brushed another moth from our lantern.
"You know; I'm not stopping you from sleeping without me."
"You're not. I just can't sleep without you."
"That's not my problem."
"No, it's the moths'."
"That's not their problem either."
•
I groaned for
The umpteenth time that night
And the millionth time in forever.
•
"What do you
See
In them that's worth saving, Kiku?"
•
You started,
Seeming as if you
Didn't know the answer either.
•
"They…
Deserve a chance,
I suppose."
•
"And that's because…?"
•
"They just do, Yao."
•
"They're ugly and useless."
•
"But they are spectacular
In the light of our lantern."
•
"They'll burn in the light of our lantern as well."
•
"Which is why we can't let them
Approach the flames unguarded",
You insist,
Ushering another away.
•
I barely dodged it
As if wafted
Lazily
Past my nose.
•
"But what if they want to burn anyway?"
I frowned.
You looked to me as if I was
A lunatic.
Or,
At least a man with no hope.
•
"That's silly, Yao.
They wouldn't approach our lantern
If they did not
Want to be beautiful in our eyes,
Or grow –"
•
"That's just it!"
I snapped,
"Kiku, cease the lunacy!
Moths don't approach to be beautiful,
Much less grow!
•
"Kiku…
Do you know why they approach our lantern?"
•
You answered with silence,
Your face
A mask of innocent distress,
If only the lantern would shine on you
And not the moth which was approaching.
•
"Moths live only for one night.
They choose our
Lantern
Because it is the best place
For a spectacular death;
For in the kingdom of the moths,
Death by flame
Is the most honourable death of all.
•
"Kiku, can you not see!
Moths don't live for beauty
Nor for growth.
•
"Moths live to DIE!"
•
The moth approaching our lantern, wafts
Lifelessly
To the floor
In cinders and ashes.
•
Years later,
The night you left my arms for good,
The moths littered my floorboards.
•
Cinders and ashes,
With no hope to go on.
"You don't go thwacking the moths with your sandals, Ellen. You feel sorry and pray for them, because they only get the chance to celebrate as grown-ups for a night before they die." When my parents had first told me this as a little girl, I was immediately mesmerized by the swarm of gossamer wings which frolicked the streetlamp outside of my bedroom window. It'd never occurred to me how poetic such little things could be; how such trivial insects could symbolize such a profound lesson in life.
Nonetheless, the moth, hand-in-hand with the butterfly, would later go on to become one of the national symbols of the kingdom of Plumeria.
I also learned a couple of years then that the 'laron' my parents had been referring to was not the cute little fuzzy's on wings which had translated to 'moths', but the termites on wings which, at one point, had threatened to eat the furniture of the house and was constantly falling on my head whenever I least expected them to. I'd felt cheated then; all the rainy seasons I could have spent thwacking them in had gone to waste!
Oh well; another national symbol for me.
-Plumeria-hi