While the Lion Sleeps

In shadows they hide and wait while the sun yawns like a great lion in the sky. It takes its time waking. It roars as it rises from the dusk and leaps forward, upward. With each stride it burns more brightly, lighting up the world whether the world wants to be woken or not. The sun is fire, violence and entitlement - burning holes in the eyes of those who dare to stare. Brash and noisy to the ears of those who are naturally quiet and calm and cool – the moths.

Their garish cousins love the sun. they worship at the feet of the lion as they skip from petal to petal showing off their jewelled wings. Even their name sounds light and bright – the butterfly. But the moths bear no malice towards the butterfly; they feel no envy. They are happy to rest until nightfall.

Most of the moths have never even seen the sun, but they feel it, and they fear it. Instinct tells them when to hide, and instinct tells them when to stir. So, they wait and they sleep and they let the blazing lion creep across the sky until it is tired and losing its strength. Then, like mice who understand when the cat is sleeping, they start to come alive. Their bodies begin to twitch and fizz, an excitement builds slowly before they are even aware of it. A deep breath and they wait for the lion to release its last roar, a glowing orange, pink and luminous roar, as it dips out of sight.

Now is their time. Each wing shudders and stretches - opened and closed, opened and closed. The night is a protective blanket, and they happily wrap themselves in its cloak as they beat their wings and prepare to soar. They take to the air in a silent, invisible dance. They glide and float and flutter through the heavily scented night. They skim and skitter from flower to flower, each with a more magical name than the last: Queen of the night, Angel’s Trumpets, the Moonflower. For hours they play and prance and pirouette against the glow of the moon. And then, as black turns to purple, turns to periwinkle and pink, a quiet descends again. Before the lion wakes, they drift back to their hiding places and return to the peacefulness of the shadows.