I’ve been spending a lot more time lately looking out at the night because of the arrival of the fireflies. A few days ago, when a flash of lightning lit the sky, a firefly glowed a split second after, which became my OSI post on August 3rd. I never get tired of watching lightning bugs (as they're sometimes called) flash in the dark, but my favorite time to see them is just at the very end of twilight. Last night when I was sitting on the screened porch I saw one flash in the dimness over by the red maple. Wanting more, I stepped outside and kind of spread my gaze, not knowing which direction he went, hoping he wouldn’t fly too far away before the next flash. Then suddenly he flashed again – barely a hand span from my right eye! I jumped and went “Oh!” I was so startled. And then he sailed up over my head. I could just make him out; tiny beetle silhouetted against the last of the fading light. Later, when it was totally dark, except for some distant flashes of heating lighting across the lake in Ohio, I looked up one more time before bed, and was rewarded by another firefly flash, immediately accompanied by the bright streak of one of the Perseids. Are these all coincidences? Perhaps, but I choose to believe there’s a poetry in nature that stands outside the incidentals of weather or even astronomy, that goes beyond the expedients of hatching, mating, egg-laying and death for even the smallest of the living.
Perseid photo from Wikimedia Commons.
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6 comments:
I have never seen a firefly, would love too. What a beautiful post, wonderful magical photo too.
www.mypoeticpath.wordpress.com
you are so lucky that you still get to see these natural wonders...
loved your post.
I have never seen a firefly. I have always thought that they must look like fairies.
Thank you for another lovely post :o)
Your posts are beautiful.
This photograph is spectacular. I once saw a meteor shower that went on for hours. It was a magical night for me. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if I had someone to share it with. I learned later that a neighbor only a short distance away had been watching it at the same time, wishing the same thing. Sharing makes everything so much more wonderful.
Fireflies have always been a very important part of my life.
Every day (and every night) there are so many miracles for us to behold. You have many lovely thoughts on this blog. I find it a very calming place.
The older I become I am allowing myself to become circular in my thinking. I want to believe, therefore I do, just for a short while anyway, like the duration of the intermittent flashing of firefly.
My little two year old grandson held a rock up to my face last week and said, "Eat it."
And I said, "Its a rock, I can't eat it."
And he in all of his old soul wisdom of two years said to me, "Pretend!"
It was yummy poetry :-)!
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