Fred the Thread – a poem

Dr Robert Hoare reads a poem he wrote about the native moth (Houdinia flexilissima), whose larva is known as Fred the Thread. The poem is from Robert’s book Six-legged Things and Scaly Wings: An anthology of New Zealand insect verse (mostly about moths). When not writing poetry, Robert is an invertebrate systematist with Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research.

Learn more about Robert’s work with these Hub resources.

Transcript

DR ROBERT HOARE

I have a little poem about Fred the Thread, which I wrote.

I have a friend (his name is Fred)
He’s thinner than a cotton thread
His colour is an orange-red
He doesn’t feed on jam or bread
But Sporadanthus stems instead.

Such narrow tunnels must he tread
He needs a hinge inside his head
To give his jaws the room to shred
The food that is his home and bed
And stop himself from dropping dead.

Now when our friend is fully fed
And knows the time has come to shed
His final skin, a sense of dread
begins to filter into Fred:
How fast, he thinks, the time has sped!
And what a sheltered life he’s led!
He hopes he’ll have some outdoor cred
And won’t be thought of as inbred.

He sloughs his skin from A to Zed
And there’s a pupa in his stead!
Three weeks have passed, and it’s incred-
ible to see the adult Fred,
A mothy person born and bred
To look like that on which he’s fed.

He shows an admirable ded-
ication to his art, his sed-
entary posture leaving ed-
ucated mothmen ruby-red,
The effort of locating Fred
Causing a rush of blood to head
Resulting in potential med-
ical emergency and bed
With cooling drink and favourite Ted
Until delirium has fled.

To summarise, he’s Fred the Thread,
He’s red and has a hing-ed head
His head is used to shred his bed,
His bed’s the food on which he’s fed,
His bed is red and I am led
To think the redness of the Fred
Reflects the bedness of the red
I mean the redness of the bed –
The bed he shreddeth with his head
Until the Fred is fully fed
And sheds the skin he has to shed
To flee the bed that must be fled
To lead the life that must be led
To woo the wife that must be wed
To father further Freds of Thread.
Then Fred can smile and drop down dead.

I’ve said the things I wanted said.

Acknowledgements
Dr Robert Hoare, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research