how to touch upon death in poetry by way of 34 moths

Moths ' Robert Cording

I woke to the flutter of all
their wings over the screen
as, slowly, they assembled
themselves out of the dusty
half-light of morning '
thirty four moths,
their small gray-brown bodies
covering the screen like lichen.
At noon, they basked
in what little sun there was,
the pale September light
resting briefly on wings
that moved hardly at all
yet never stopped moving
until the moths began
to die. Even then they
seemed more composed
than exhausted, taking
the time they needed,
as if they were dreaming
their death into being.
They simply became their end,
death so naturally wrought,
I needed to touch each one
to be certain. Where
I placed my finger, they broke
out of their bodies
in little puffs of dust, leaving
behind an imprint
on the screen. By then
evening had entered
the day, and the sky, dense
with saturated colors,
collapsed in on itself,
the low clouds igniting
in a bonfire of last light.
And I felt suddenly
the slow, irreversible moment-
to-moment passion
of everything to keep
moving ' and I leaned close
to the screen and blew
my breath on what remained
until nothing was there,
then stood a while listening
to the wind in the leaves
while the plush dark freed
a scattering of stars and the moon
broke clear of the trees.