The Ghost Moth

Once we lived so close to the bush
each day wore the beech trees' rangy profile,
all night the creek purred brushing
the antennae of our sleep; in the evening
moths came pouring into the lamplight
some small, blue-sheened, as though it was
light itself combed to dust on their wings

or a ghost moth stared from a doorway
sheathed in its gentle shallow gaze;
and we ourselves seemed diffused, like
the light, and would wander away
past the moths to the leaf-shivering trees
as though summoned in secret
by the morepork's comfortless cry.

That earthy unearthly life is over now
...