I once traced firefly trajectories
Sitting on the back steps of my youth
Such a pattern less flight, only now
Does it occur to me how
Blind was their path before the light
How must they feel when taking these
Leaps of faith, pushing forward
Without constant validation?

And equally how blind I was
Chasing insects through summer
Wide-eyed and barefoot
Stumbling forward on half estimation
Half blind chance, waiting
With cupped hands for the light
To prove my choice of paths.

It’s true, as adults, as well.
How subliminally we change our steps
Wandering our nightly paths, the happenstance
Occurring as a glimmer flash, a shared smile
A tickle of fingers as they clasp
Quite naturally, hearts beating
Like invisible insect wings
Carrying us off with ease
Into the more secret shades of night.

Such actions transport me, days distant
And a feeling I thought gone forever
The soft summer breeze, a white fog
Hanging like thin sheets drying on the line
A delicate, ghostly glow of skin
Desperate in the fragility of the moment
I find myself chasing you, tracing
Random paths upon you, hands cupped
With trained patience
Hoping to catch your light.

But just as my choices dead end, fireflies
Glowing in my peripheral like headlights
Drifting through this night fog, so drifts
My gaze from your stunning, blue eyes
To the tree line before me, notice
That although the path is dark, sometimes
A light shines, and on some nights
The lights shine together, decorating
The trees like blinking Christmas bulbs.

How transitory our lives,
How strangely timed,
But just as we open our palms, joyous
To catch fleeting beauty, we know
That the beauty must be let free,
To wander blindly out into the world,
It’s glow forever an etched memory.