Firefly Nights
a poem of wonder, imagination, childhood

I’d like to salute for a moment that sparkle in the eye of the child reaching out sweetly cupped hands capturing a tiny lightning treasure, placing each blinking creature in a mayonnaise jar, breathing holes punctured in the lid. Your smile glows ember-yellow in the flickering candle-light of these dream-keepers of night.
It makes me remember wild, wild nights filled with faeries aflitter and monkeys that sing in the wood. A sprinkle of this and that is enough, young forever, the moon on our cheeks, our toes in the cool damp sands where we bury our cars and run our water hoses. The sweet gray granite is still home-base, and you are still hiding behind the old oak, the one with the swinging tire, before Daddy cut it down.
Children are catching faeries across fields and yards along the edges of woods in town after town over countless nights backed by a cicada chorus like no other sound on earth. Wild dancing eyes and lips moving slowly counting each one. We bury them in the sandbox and watch the sand burst with lime-lit fury.






