4:02 a.m. 68 degrees, wind SSE 3 mph, the air thick enough to slice. Rain imminent (I hope). Sky: dark and brooding, slowly awakening lumen by lumen; in the east, a hot orange glow precedes the sun. A cadre of fireflies: over pasture and pond, through the woods; one wanders around the perimeter of a coltsfoot leaf, others crawl on the ground and the lawn; staggered flashes of cold incandescence, bits of moonlight on the softness of beetles. Species recognized by duration and pattern of repetitive, repeatable blinks. I recognize nothing of their individual identities . . . just the beauty of soft-bodied phosphorescence.
It's an altogether different world when curtains are drawn. Ears like parabolas, dogs gather information; know so much more than I do. First woodland birds singing: ovenbird and red-eyed vireo; both constrained. First wetlands birds singing: yellowthroat and swamp sparrow, also constrained. A subdued hermit thrush and a pair of veeries set fireflies to music. The pond full-throated: bullfrogs sonorous belches, masculine and off-key; green frogs loose twang, feminine and expressive; plops of unseen frogs retreating from the shoreline. Tadpoles gulp air and leave bubbles.
I haven't heard the bittern in weeks and turkeys have stopped performing; poults, a third the hen's size, already fly. Immature red-shouldered hawks have joined their parents a thousand feet in the sky, inscribing great aerial circles above the wetlands.
A female luna moth lies on the stone steps; her gracious green wings and streaming tails a banner of late June, her body empty . . . of everything. Like many rock n' rollers, adult luna moths survive on the charge of youth. They don’t eat or drink. They have no digestive system. No excretory system. They’re just a package of eggs or sperm encased in a tube of white pubescence, the most gorgeous moth imaginable. Gravid females inscribe night currents with pheromones; from miles away, males read the message with large, feathery antennae. Like sockeye salmon spent adults die. Luna moths, enormous and gorgeous, bit players in the high drama of early summer. A gift of an oppressively sticky morning.
Summer may have just started but the wheel of the season spins more like Dog Days than graduation days. In praise of luna moths.