The butterfly weed’s
deep orange—
a monarch stops to fill up
*
Halogen flashlight:
he picks out the luna moth
from 100 yards
*
The stripped catalpa
still quivers in the breeze:
starving caterpillars
*
Candlelight vigil
outside the state prison—
the smell of burning moths
*
Hummingbird battle:
only the hummingbird moth
remains on the flowers
*
Red-spotted purples
mating in mid-air—
her wings stop moving
*
Bright yellow goldfinch—
the tattered tiger swallowtail
surrenders the thistles
*
Hot August day:
I stop to check out the fur
on a woolly bear caterpillar
*
The whole hillside turns
prematurely white:
fall webworms
*
Driving home after dark
from the flood-swollen river,
a forest full of moths
*
Earlier versions of the first and fourth haiku appeared on Identica, 6/26/10 and 6/26/10.