A Moth, a Memory
Inside, on the mosquito net, a dowdy moth Kettle-drumming to get out.
Outside, varicoloured butterflies Bunched on the trees, like a harvest festival.
A night comes into my mind— H igh up in Kyoto, a place called 'Alaska,' Overhanging the battling traffic; And the noise of moths, against the long windows, Kettle-drumming to get in.
Inside, we were eating dead cows; Or it may have been dead fishes.
We had pushed our way in; And later we pushed our way out.
That man sometimes kills is no surprise; That he isn't always killing is surprising.
The taxi fighting for its foot of space, Men, women, children, for their cubic inch of air.
The night was cool, after the humid day, And the muscles were wanting to work : To win more space, to grab more air, From those mobs of fluttering shapes.
It seemed strange that no taxi leapt upon us, That the jostling was not followed by a knife —At this late date what gendarme calls up fear?— Strange that the bar-girl dropped no arsenic in our
glasses, That the open manholes weren't disguised with rushes.
These are little things, no doubt.
They say it's a sort of virtue, to be pleased with little things.
We certainly weren't out to be virtuous, though.
Astonished, grateful, we stared at the moon, Through a net of wires that held it off our heads. Like this noisy moth, perhaps, Marvelling that no heavy hand descends on him.
D. J. ENRIGHT
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