The first black Peppered Moth was recorded in Manchester in 1848 and by 1895, 98% of Peppered Moths in the city were black. —Butterfly Conservation
Peppered Moths abhor salt and anything white. Long ago, they bathed in sunshine, soaked in roses’ halo glow. Now, they camouflage themselves as chimney sweepers, speak with a cockney accent, and dance in shadows. At night, they pray to the moon. They love to peer in windows to watch screens that show Mary Poppins or My Fair Lady. It helps them to forget and to sleep. When they dream, they see burnt skies filling with dark fumes and billowing puffs of black smoke. For Christmas, Peppered Moths want sedimentary rocks in their stockings and to kiss under lichen coated with coal. They are born knowing the call of Silver Birch and Oak, the deep smell of Hawthorn, but they also expect every day to turn dystopian. They can hear death in the winds. When they get drunk on nectar, they tell fortunes that are bleak and predict only demise.
M. E. Silverman had 2 books of poems published and co-edited Bloomsbury’s Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry, New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust, and 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium. @4ME2Silver
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