Firefly Night by Sara Wright

Warm nights
stir
sweet
moist air
waft
through
open windows
golden lights
begin to
blink

Animated
conversation

‘I love you’

 Tears
flow
unbidden

Ancient
memory
sounding
gilded lemon
yellow
sparkling
emerald
striped
beetle
disappearing
into Green

Once you
spoke
in a thousand
voices
wrapped
in black velvet

Once
long ago
when Earth
still Rained.

Commentary:

For the past week or so we have had continuous forecasts of rain, and a few of these have been accurate making this late spring greening particularly astonishing – the new leaves on healthy trees and my wildflowers just love this moisture and at least we have had intermittent showers. We had one spell of ongoing rain that left my (rain) barrels overflowing.

 With that much said, the brooks and rivers indicate that this rain is not enough to assuage the ongoing drought that has been increasing over the past ten years. Don’t imagine that I am not grateful for the sky that opened with her gift because I am – this golden green intensity on the cusp of the first days of summer feeds my heavy heart. More of our trees are in trouble – the ones that nourish what’s left of the wildlife, and I am deeply concerned. With 96 percent of the world filled by humans and their agricultural animals there is only room for 4 percent of wildlife left. This extreme anthropocentric imbalance horrifies me. Too many people, babies, machines, robots. The world I love is disappearing as I write…

I note that when I feel particularly depressed over more unwelcome earth changes that some aspect of nature materializes to capture my attention, bringing me into the wonder of the present moment…

Three nights ago when the blinking lights began to converse outside my window I jumped up hoping to see many more from other windows in my house, but no, only a few intermittent blinks. Why this window I wondered. Returning to bed I sank into the night eventually falling asleep to those glorious lights feeling a deep poignant sense of gratitude for the existence of a magical insect that I had loved since I was a small child. The second and third nights the fireflies came I was waiting and watched as they clustered around my bedroom window again. By now I sensed that this small congregation was making a personal attempt to communicate with me. As I leaned into the knowing that so many (except Indigenous folk) would laugh at, I felt seen and cared about. And that was enough.

This morning I found myself wishing that I could visit with just one of these beetles – if only for a moment. It had been years since I had seen one. Dry springs and steamy summers have not been filled with firefly light because these insects need sufficient moisture to breed. And of course, throughout the world they are in steep decline.

This morning while walking around ‘my’ land – the land that I belong to I was busy looking for differences between chokecherry and wild cherry trees for an article I am writing when I saw the beetle pictured above. He was such a friendly little fellow; he posed long enough for me to take his picture and then just sat there. We made strong eye contact, and I wondered how I might look to him. Insects have so many faceted eyes!  Well, I found him beautiful, and thanked him!

Afterwards I tried to find his species – one out of 20, 000 though how many of these species remains no one really knows. Although I finally identified him as a ‘Maine native’, I still don’t know his name.