The Journal of My Psychidae

after Shiki Masaoka’s Verse Record

August 17

This morning, H calculated that he’ll be dead within six months. Sitting in the shade, he noticed a juniper branch bobbing and drew closer to see what sort of bird was inside — instead he discovered a pinecone-like thing, almost an ornament. He also noticed a “suspicious looking” blotch on his arm.

At my insistence, he went to his doctor, and the suspect turned out to be a slow-healing cut. “But,” the doctor said, “this large brown shape on your temple looks off.” She ordered a biopsy. Her scrawl read: “Impression L. M.” Back home, he Googled the lab order and discovered a whole world of lethal spots. We are both unnerved.

I forgot about the pinecone-thing until turning to this journal.

August 18

H’s sleep infested by nightmares — lying beside me, he ran, kicked, and swatted. I think I heard him say, “Wait up!”

August 19

He has begun talking about death very matter-of-factly. Where our deed and financial papers are filed — that kind of thing. Also how young sixty is. How to tell his daughters. I said, really — a search-engine prognosis? But he’s adamant.

No matter what, biopsy results won’t come in for ten days. He took an afternoon nap with earphones on, blasting hard rock.

Me, midmorning I went on a cleaning rampage that extended outside to weeding. And I returned to the pinecone “ornament.” Looking closer, I saw a black caterpillar poking out of the bristly case that, yes, was from the tree but not even an infested pinecone. I’d never seen such an oddity, but it felt familiar. Then I was reminded of a poem I’d written several years ago:

Staying

Some females reside in cases all their days.Degenerate, an entomologist claims.But, because the bagworm moth femaleis wingless and also withoutlegs, mouth, eyes, and antennae,of course she languishes for a malewith his well-developed but dull wing setto land and impregnate. Here in her casecomposed of silk and pineshe lays her eggs and dies and that’s all right.It’s all right to never leavewhen wherewithal is nonexistent.When the bed smells so pungentand is tender as a coffin.

I knew this must be the insect in our little yard and I Googled “bag-worm moth,” which led me to “evergreen bagworm moth” and a wealth of information. I also checked the entomologist text that I used for that poem: Metcalf and Flint (1932).

Thank heaven for research. Even if that’s all I write about. Or especially.

August 20

A bird call pauses daybreak. I hear morning before gray and wet.

________

Hardly sleeping last night, I got up and leafed through the entomology texts collected over the years. One reference led to another, and I found myself online reading a 1918 Boy’s Life section “On Nature’s Trail” and several stories about evergreen bagworms.

One contains a dialog between “Mars Mayfiel” and “a colored man” who did not want to make a bonfire of tree limbs infested with “wood billies” (from billets, lodgings?) because they were people in the afterlife being punished for stealing wood. He said, “Day’s jes been turned inter deses billies deyselves, an’ so dey go aroun’ totin’ dey sacks of leetle sticks, and hangin’ dar in de win’, col’ an’ chill enough de whole winter froo.” Wow, this “Uncle Remus” stuff. 1918. The War had just ended.

________

This afternoon, certain that Sei Shōnagon had a whole entry on insects, I dusted off my hardcover copy of The Pillow Book. I was amazed to find the “basket worm” was awarded a good bit of space: “I feel very sorry for the basket worm. He was begotten by a demon, and his mother, fearing that he would grow up with his father’s frightening nature, abandoned the unsuspecting child, having first wrapped him in a dirty piece of clothing. ‘Wait for me,’ she said as she left. ‘I shall return to you...