the porch light, 2009– · kept by Agnes Thorne
I started writing them down the summer my husband died, because I was up anyway, and the porch light was on anyway, and something kept arriving. Sixteen summers later I have a shoebox of notebooks and this page. These are the moths that came to one porch light, on one house, at the edge of a wood. I draw them the next morning from memory and from the notes. The drawings are not good. The moths were.
The one people mean when they say "a moth that size?" Pale green, with long tails that trail behind it like it's in no hurry. The adults have no mouths that work; they don't eat at all, and they live about a week. The first time one came I sat with it until it left. It seemed only polite.
Pink and yellow, and fluffy, like something a child would draw if you asked for a moth and said it could be any colours. It is real. The caterpillars live on the maples by the road. I've stopped telling people about it because they don't believe me, and now I just show them this.
Very large, tan as a paper bag, with two great eyespots on the back wings — it's named for the giant with one eye. When it opened its wings on the screen door I said "oh" out loud, to nobody, at two in the morning.
Brown, plain, unremarkable, until it moves — then a flash of bright yellow underneath, and it's gone before you're sure you saw it. They say the flash startles birds. It startles me every time, after sixteen years. That's not nothing.
Chocolate and cream on top, then bright orange with blue-black spots when it opens up. I've seen fewer every summer. I don't know why, or whether it's me or the moths. I write the number down either way. Somebody should be counting.
Not a porch-light moth at all. It comes in the daytime, to the honeysuckle, and hovers like a hummingbird, with wings you can see through. I put it here because it would be rude to leave it out. It's the one that lets you see it.
The grown-up woolly bear — the fuzzy banded caterpillar that's supposed to tell you how hard the winter will be by how wide its brown band is. It doesn't, really. I check anyway, every October, and tell the neighbour, and we both pretend it's science.
W.A., who keeps the night journal on this website, came and sat by my lamp one evening this year. We didn't say much. They wrote down the nothing, as they do, and I wrote down eleven moths, and we agreed afterwards that it had been a good night for both. There is also a woman who listens to the radio at the same hours. Between the three of us, I think the night is quite well covered.
Tell me what came to your light. Where you are, what night, what it looked like, even if you don't know its name. Especially if you don't know its name.