PHOTOGRAPHS BY Gareth McConnell
WORDS BY CYRÉE JARELLE JOHNSON
Under the protective veil of the dark, pollinators like moths and bats take to the skies, visiting moonlit flowers that stay open and spill out their fragrance in the dusk. Photographer Gareth McConnell turns his lens on nature’s enchanting nighttime phenomenon.
As the blustering sheets take the shape of bled dark
shadowy forgers shake sleep encased in lead dark.
When the nectar runs thick foragers lick down the neck.
From the tongue a new heat, curves silhouetted dark.
Now the lover won’t weep when he leaves to spark streets.
She sleeps as he wished he could sleep—in naked dark.
Whose work is lauded? Whose labor bids no remark
but gliders and sparkers, sleepless, piloted dark?
Each night squinting out the window: sallow torrent
of bright. Moth covens dance, entranced in winnowed dark.
Once, proboscis pried open the tuberose cave
and, passionate, suckled before blushing blood dark.
Without warning, like sky flame, the door hinge a blade
—the love enters wordless, makes the lover dread dark.
Wind of owls hunting squeeze stamen to piston
Talons rhyme. Prey threatened, struck wild, then the red dark.
What do moths do, spent from their night light rendezvous?
Near dry beds they lie dead—Con Ed’s limited dark.
In the face of the climate crisis, one thing is clear: we will only get to an ecologically just future by way of working together. If humankind is to heal its relationship to the rest of creation, it must restore harmony—which cannot exist without collaboration. And what could be more emblematic of holism and harmony than a hive?
The Night Shift
