Fireflies Poems

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
...

The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
...

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.
...

Fireflies die
Stars wink out of existence
Butterflies fall from the sky
Rivers take the path of least resistance
...

Night, the black summer, simplifies her smells
into a village; she assumes the impenetrable

musk of the negro, grows secret as sweat,
...

When you are in the midst of darkness
Where loneliness engulfs your soul
Twinges of hopelessness felt
Chirping sound of crickets heard
...

My fancies are fireflies, —
Specks of living light
twinkling in the dark.
...

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
...

When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
...

We were entwined in red rings
Of blood and loneliness before
The first snows fell
Before muddy rivers seeded clouds
...

Far, far away is my village!
Where fireflies of my childhood
Still glow in thick folliage
Of Pipal trees.
...

The serpents are asleep among the poppies,
The fireflies light the soundless panther's way
To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying,
And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day.
...

A lake softly shimmering, in the evening's sunset glow,
Fireflies are dancing above it, moving swiftly to and fro,
Like a shower of confetti, they gyrate in a swirling mass,
Hovering over the surface, lightly humming as they pass.
...

Sometimes I wish I were still out
on the back porch, drinking jet fuel
with the boys, getting louder and louder
as the empty cans drop out of our paws
...

Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn't be worse,
minutes of a barbaric condescension.
--Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees,
at their dark needles, accretions to no purpose
...

Loved to write as far back as memory goes
Without any thought for a verse to compose

Poetic expressions of innate creativity
...

When sunset, a brass gong,
vibrate through Couva,
is then I see my soul, swiftly unsheathed,
like a white cattle bird growing more small
...

Koening knew now there was no one on the river.
Entering its brown mouth choking with lilies
and curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shallop
past the abandoned ferry and the ferry piles
...

It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth
A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters
to the Malayan sea
I have been there too: the fading world of Vimbisara and Asoka
...

On warm dark nights I think I see
beneath the weeping willow tree,
the fairies dancing in the grass
on tiny feet that fly so fast.
...

Evenings are quite dark in the mountains…once all the sunlight's gone…
so when we take a walk away from the cabin we leave a few lights on.

This way, at night…wherever we choose to roam
...

There was a light rain falling as I walked this morning…the weather was cool and calm
when I remembered a night just like this…years ago…in our backyard with my mom.

It was the first time I ever saw fireflies…I watched them flash and dance out in the rain
...

On a morning walk as I watched a burst of lightning flash before my eyes…
a memory was awakened…of our children chasing fireflies.

It was in the evening…after dark…around a campfire in N.C.
...

I look down and see fireflies dancing around my hand
I sit trying to understand if their whole plan is just... to dance
"Constantly interacting without any touching is the plan?
Which one of them decided that? This friendshipzone is too advanced."
...

Had fireflies been not,
Would nights have been decorative,
Had they not flown with a glimmering,
Would nights have been bespangled?
...

What are we but
whimsical fireflies
with greed in our eyes
forget the need
...

FIREFLIES

starlit, stiil, summer night
...

Carrying little lanterns, fireflies
float under the empty night sky,
drift in the dark and boundless field.
...