Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Moth at My Window

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Today?s column features Richard Aldridge, a poet, anthologist, and educator who lived on the Maine coast. In Aldridge?s poem a moth becomes the source of thoughts about the unknown.

Moth at My Window by Richard Aldridge

Against my pane
He beats a rapid
Pitapat
In trying to reach
The desk lamp lit
In front of me.
Wing flurries spent,
He crawls and toils
This way and that,
His whole self bound
To pierce the veil
He cannot see.
The glance I turn
On him, light
Spreading still across
My page, is one
Of interest in
The company.
Whatever time
I take to watch
Will be no loss
From my own toils
To pierce the veil
I cannot see.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1980 by Richard Aldridge. Reprinted from ?Red Pine, Black Ash,? Thorndike Press, 1980, by permission of the Estate of Richard Aldridge. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.