A Walk Among the Fireflies Canto III

Firefly Questions

I took a walk this evening

Just to stretch my legs

And clear my head

So on this summer’s night

Thick with the promise of a thunderstorm

I walk the streets of my neighborhood

Past familiar houses

With lights and families inside

Past the old meadow

Which remembers a long gone farm,

Past the tree-lined bog

Now silent for the night

Save for the infrequent croaking

Of a bull frog.

Around the bend I go

Into the newest neighborhood

With houses big as mansions

Painted every shade of a muted rainbow,

Meant to make them appear different,

Yet unable to hide the fact that

they are pretty much all the same.

Along the edge of the park I walk,

Where fireflies flash between the trunks of an oak wood,

And a small bunny rabbit scampers across my path

And into the rose thicket

Presenting me with an evening’s delight!

And I can’t help but wonder

If the children in these monstrous homes

Watching TV, playing video games,

Or texting their friends realize

what a wonder is waiting for them

right outside their doors?

And I can’t help but wonder if they even care,

Or if their will even be fireflies 20 years from now

And will the next generation even know what they are?

~Kathie Adams Brown (June 22, 2012)

A Walk Among the Fireflies Canto II

A Firefly Waltz

In the muggy, humid air of summer

I watch the fireflies dance

Above the soggy, boggy swamp,

Where green cattail spears stand tall

And point their fuzzy cinnamon spears to the sky,

I watch the insects flash and fly

And listen to the bullfrog chorus

Croak a song more ancient than

The surrounding trees,

And still the fireflies blink and flash,

A primitive dance, a primal thing,

Of earth, and skies and seasons,

The pulsing rhythm of life,

The mating rite of summer.

~Kathie Adams Brown (June 22, 2012)

A Walk Among the Fireflies Canto I

Firefly Delight

I saw the stars fall from the sky

Into the bog and rise

As fireflies!

And the earth sighed with pleasure

At the glory of the sight

And small children danced in the meadows

With the light of the fireflies dancing in their eyes!

It was a merry time,

A long ago time,

A simpler time of life.

~Kathie Adams Brown (June 22, 2012)