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narrative writing & arts

 

SPRING 2009

FIREFLIES

Pleiades Cluster also known as the Seven Sisters. NASA. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 1837-8. (excerpt Locksley Hall). A firefly display in the twilight tonight. The park pathway I walked was thick with them. Bright yellow diamonds welded on gray faerie wings, brushing across my legs and feet. Thick, starry hordes on grasses, within shadows, along slopes. And I recalled another twilight and another place, watching fireflies hover over an endless sea of meadow grass, and my children, still so young fledgelings, racing through the shadows, holding sparklers aloft, filling the gloaming with their cries and their light.