The Poetry of Ellin Anderson

MOTH SUMMER

Ellin Anderson
 

Mist of a million facets
Came swirling through July,
Compelled by unseen alphabets
That spelled out how to die

In heaps below the heartless glare
Of supermarket lights,
In drifts that slicked the bridges where
The swarms filled pearly nights

And left white ribbons on the tar
Like salt-stains on a beach;
And mobbed the headlights of my car
So many moons to reach!

Cold orbs shook off a scaly snow
With nonpareils of jet
For eyes, fixed on the Alpine glow
Through one last minuet

Beneath a streetlight — where each ray
Struck twenty petal hues
Borne off in gutters to the bay,
And on the soles of shoes.

He lusted after fire
That oblivious embrace
But light can be a liar,
And, denied its final grace,

He beat against the bitter glass,
A dance of vanity
Concluded on the dewy grass
And then, the moth was free.
 

© 2008 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be copied or used in any way
without written permission from the author.




St. Patrick's Day
Seabrook
Tiger and Blue Jewel

Winter's Hill
Maple-Key Song
November in Camelot

Wassail Song
Veleda
Cinderella
The Rooster at Midsummer
Liberty Enlightens the People

The Leap
The Goldfinch
Three Bears
Song of the Lily
White Tree at Twilight
The Christmas Tree

Song-Sparrow
Grand Bois du Nord
The Owl
Verticordia
The Little God of Joy
Pear-Petals
Photographing the Moon
A Rabbit
Rose, Do You Know
The Two Pining Bachelors
Lorelei
Persephone

Avalon
The Harvest Chorus
The Maple Mask
Ghost Cardinal

The Little Heath-Rose
Found
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Song for the Harp

The Spinner
 
The Prayer of Cephalus
Circe and Ulysses
The Black Arts
Tristan and Isolde & Jupiter's Two Casks
Nectanebus

Home Page

More Poems by Ellin Anderson

The Little Mermaid
Vermeer
Anne's Hearth