words for the adult moth

only recently did moths become adults -

infant word, moth, once referred

mostly to larvae, old english maggot,

born and smuggled here from old germanic,

saxon roots, in sacks and silo stacks they

infiltrate the language:

motte then in middle dutch, 

motti in the old norse tongue.

you, entomological phenomenon,

whose etymology in silken webs

did tangle up with mother moth,

the midge, the gnat, the genus musca.

the matured form once had a name

unto itself, a warmer word to call it by:

in middle english, flindre, cognate

with what the dutch call vlinder;

that is, of course,

the butterfly.