This National Poetry Writing Month Challenge calls for poems about the names and nicknames of either the writers, or something in Nature.
Lymantria dispar is the Destructive Disparate moth. Females, almost but not quite as big as Leopard Moths, are built to lay eggs and die, usually in about the same place, within a few hours. Males are built to fly long distances in pursuit of females. When a male dispar finds a female who has not already mated, he doesn't seem to mind that she'd make two of him or that she had an extra week--or two!--to enjoy being a caterpillar. The photo above, from Butterflies and Moths of North America, shows a dispar couple.
Big as she is, my truelove encompasses
More protein than she's made of. When we mate
The froth we leave behind on the bark masses
More than the two of us together. Great
Amounts of air rush in, plump out each wall,
Leaving our babies ample room to grow.
We drop off of the spongy mass. You call
Us spongy moths, and so we are. Quite so.
Some used to call us Gypsies, like a tribe
That spread northwest from India through Britain.
"A slur on Gypsy people," thinks the scribe?
Speak for yourself! On my behalf is written:
The nickname "dreaded Gyps" implies a scam;
We've made no deals with humans, Sir or Ma'am!
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