Two white moths fly a tight spiral up toward the crystal blue sky. It is as if they are being pulled up to heaven by a tightly wound, unraveling string, which pirouettes them as they ascend. The brown grass blows in the breeze and shushes for silence. We are an audience watching a dance, the Dance.
The male chases the female. Or vice versa. I can’t tell. And they go up and up and up until I realize I have never seen moths so high before. Well except to beat themselves against streetlamps, black silhouettes against the orange light, orange light framed by the black sky. Never this high during daylight though.
They finish.
Rapidly, the white moths fly down to the ground, as if they finally realize how high they are. As if they awoke from their ecstasy and realize the pointlessness of their position: there is no food so high; no cover. Swallows fly over this field. But even they seek the cover of trees. Only hawks and vultures have the freedom of such great heights.
Once to the ground the white moths separate, one on my left, one on my right. I turn my head back and forth, like a child between two beloved and hostile parents. I keep turning my head trying to keep them both in view. One goes toward the path in front of me, the other toward the path from which I just came. I pause, wanting to move toward both, but I am paralyzed.
Eventually I lose them. They disappear into the brown grass, now silent.
