Souvenirs Entomologiques

 for Jean Henri Fabre: "The Virgil of insects he was, and the Homer too."                 

Incomparable observer, the close–seen picture burgeons:
behold, a dovetail moth comes culling the nerves
of a local field, seeking souvenirs in red and yellow flowers, 

in scarlet pompons of bee-balm, in sow-thistle,
and flanneled mullein leaves, in the common evening
primrose of roadside and marginal flaxen places. 

Of her mothy response to blooms, we know better
than to say she admires them. Yet she seeks them
above all others, settling to brush herself in showy color.

And then, when ripe with eggs her taste for carnival fades. 
She flies now in search of the bedstraw green —
no other leaf, no other green for her wings of confinement.

Agreed then: of dovetail mothers we will not say she plays.
Save as light plays over a wave playing over a shore
where hours play in declension over a fully inflected earth.

The Passionate Observer, by Jean Henri Fabre
First published in the Michigan Quarterly Review; revised slightly 2024
Homage homepage | Poems | At-A-Glance Contents