Luna Moth: Seven Nights’ Flight
With Minor Fossil & Edgar Ballantyne
Dear Ones,
Here’s a bedtime story for you. I’ll not tell you too much about it, only to say that it was made possible by the generosity of two wonderful artists.
Last year, a poem by Edgar Ballantyne planted a seed in my imagination. Click here and read the whole poem.
And I’m so grateful to Minor Fossil, who gave me the honor of using his original song, Nocturne for this story. I only hope to reflect some of the mysterious and majestic beauty of this stunning tune. Enjoy!
Please click the player below for a gift of music while you read.
Nocturne by Minor Fossil
He rises at dusk with wings still damp
feathered antennae unfurling
fine-tuned feelers sifting the air
searching for a singular sweetness
among ten billion other scents.
Seven nights to find her.
Perhaps fewer,
Never more.
I:
On the First Night of his winged life, Moth practices the mathematics of flight.
He must calculate exactly how much each wingbeat costs. The fuel is measured carefully. Like a candle learns its own flame, this brightness will be spent.
Beech Trees watch his efforts with eyes, kind and protective. They speak to him through bark and heartwood:
Young one, we saw your
grandfather’s grandfather fly
this same path
burning sweet, burning brief.
You must complete what was begun.
Moth adjusts his wing-strokes for optimal glide, feeling the currents of air, and drafting on the smoothest ones. Below, a ground beetle looks up from her work and lifts her antennae in salute. She will carry news of him to the hollow Oak gathering of the Scatterlings tonight.
Moth of Green Fire!
Purpose with wings!
High above them all, Moon stretches a silver ribbon of friendship across the sky. Moth rides in her wake like a small vessel learning to sail on a dark sky-sea.
II:
On the Second Night, Wind becomes Moth’s wild tutor, teaching him how to detect hidden messages: ribboning, spiraling like smoke from a snuffed taper.
He learns to fly sideways
through rivers of scent—
sharp pine resin, bruised sweetness
of fallen apples, the green cry of torn leaves,
and night-blooming jasmine’s perfume.
But what he seeks is quieter.
One molecule in a billion, billion others.
A sign that his Luna is waiting.
A single note, so faint, no other creature
would ever notice.
His tail streamers ripple behind him, phosphorescent, ornamental. A beautiful distraction offered as gift. He knows the hunting bats will be fooled, thus sparing his life.
Take my decorations.
Take everything but my purpose.
III:
The Third Night arrives with heavy rain.
Moth cannot fly. He hangs beneath a Hickory leaf, feeling time bearing down on him the way a candle consumes its own height. His caterpillar hunger still churns, but he has no mouth now. No means to add one more hour to his life. The fuse continues to burn, even at rest.
Beneath his leafy shelter, beetles climb up from the wet darkness. They’ve come to keep vigil with him. Moth of Green Fire, they ask, why do you burn without moving?
My wings only know how to spend themselves, he answers. And Beetles understand.
They also have invisible work—love that no one counts.
IV:
On the Fourth Night he is lighter.
Having spent half of his life-force now, he flies higher, faster, the way violin strings sing brighter the tighter they are pulled.
And then—
Oh!
There.
One molecule catches his antennae like a tiny key clicking in its lock. A recognition.
Moon dips low, brightening the path like a mother lights stairs for a child coming home. This way, Moth! Luna waits for you by the Beech—the one where names are held.
Moth turns into the wind, and for the first time, stops calculating. Stops counting wingbeats. Between columns of sleeping Oak and Beech, he glides, past deer bedded down in ferns; their eyes reflect his green light without fear.
I come over the ocean
In a burning paper
Slow writhing boat to you.
A moth in love threatens nothing.
Seeks only to complete the world.
—After Edgar Ballantyne
V:
On the Fifth Night, fifth hour, fifth minute, he finds her.
Where snail trails circle the oldest Beech tree, a labyrinth has been drawn in quicksilver. Luna rests on pale bark, wings spread like hands opened in prayer. She has been calling him without sound, casting her invisible beacon, a light she saved only for him. She is magnificent in her stillness.
Moth touches down beside her, trembling with exhaustion. He has spent nearly all of his light, leaving just enough as a gift for her. Luna turns toward him, and he sees that she has been burning, too. Waiting was her offering.
For a moment, in the vastness of night, two small lives make a universe. When morning colors the horizon, they part.
All that night and the next, Luna labors, carrying countless eggs to the Hickory, the Walnut, and the Sweet Gum trees. Each one placed like a pearl into a cradle of leaf and shadow.
Moth returns to the Hickory grove of his birth.
VI:
The Sixth Night finds Moth alone.
He is resting on the same leaf that once sheltered him from rain. His wings now translucent as glass, the green faded to silver.
The Beech trees regard him, their eyes dimmed.
Beetles gather around in celebration. You did it, Moth of Green Fire! they cheer.
She carried the harder task, he tells them, thinking of Luna placing hundreds of eggs with careful devotion. Each one, a small hope for the world.
A snail passes, leaving a fresh silver trail. I will mark the paths—yours and Luna’s, says Snail. So that others will remember:
Here, flew Two, who carried tomorrow in their wings.
VII:
On the Seventh Night, Moth climbs up to the highest branch he can reach.
Twenty feet. Thirty. Each step slower than the last.
At the top, he spreads his wings one last time. Only to catch starlight, to feel wind move through his body like breath through a flute.
Moon leans down to him, so close, he could almost touch her silver face.
I have completed what was begun, Moth says. And now, I shall find her again.
Moon smiles and nods.
The wind takes him gently.
He releases, letting go.
Floating down.
Becomes light returning to light.
And somewhere in the forest,
on the undersides of leaves,
two hundred eggs wait for sunrise.
Inside each one,
a tiny caterpillar sleeps,
dreaming of wings.
+
Good night.
Sleep tight.
Microseason 58
Dear Ones,
It’s a mystery the way certain lines of poetry can remain and continue to paint themselves, over and over, on the canvas of the mind. Edgar Ballantyne’s untitled 2024 poem has certainly done so for me. I hope you’ve had a chance to read it. I used the poem sort of like an underpainting beneath this story, driving it forward and helping me imagine a Luna Moth as the embodiment of a burning paper boat crossing a dark forest-ocean.
Throughout the quiet hours of trying to shape a story around that image, Minor Fossil’s music was integral to the process. I find it impossible to describe how important music is for my brain—especially while editing. Nocturne helped me to stay focused and in the flow of this melancholy tale without getting lost in it.
Thank you, Edgar and Philip, for your grace and generosity!
Friends, how do you feel about collaboration and inspiration? Where do ideas come from—where are they before you think them? What helps your work to sing? I’d also love to hear your thoughts on unselfishness, poetry, devotion, music-making, moths(!) or anything that nudged your imagination in this story.
Thanks so much for reading!
I’ll see you in a new microseason,
xo Ann
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Minor Fossil brings a fresh ambient sound to everything he makes. I always look forward to his newsletters. Each one is a handmade sound-garden of stillness.
Here is how Philip describes his Substack:
This newsletter is the next step in my growth as an artist and writer and I’m glad to connect with you here. Every month, I share one of my original songs with you, followed by a few paragraphs about its creation.
Learn more about Minor Fossil and enjoy his musical offerings on his website.
Read and Subscribe to his Substack newsletter!
Edgar Ballantyne is a poet whose work I so admire. He has a voice I can always recognize even without a byline.
Here is his bio:
Edgar Ballantyne is old enough to know better, and lives in Australia with his wife and terrific children. He works at a hospital, where he does what he can, and hopes it will help. He likes poetry because it’s the shape that thoughts come in anyway.
He has recently published a novella Wondering. Order it here.
And his wonderful 51 Poems.
Check out Edgar’s photography.
And subscribe to Edgar’s Substack newsletter, Tender Oscillations.
Your poetry and storytelling are a real love letter to nature, Ann. You really capture it, and allow us to do the same. :)
Great piece!
Stunning, Ann. The music is indeed a perfect accompaniment to your luminous writing. I love your image of the poem as an underpainting. That idea would make a wonderful writing prompt for a workshop. (Hmmm 🤔) And your questions at the end will surely spark some deep reflection. Especially, where do ideas live before we think them? I think of them in a sort of cosmic green room, patiently waiting for us to tune in and listen with our hearts.