Sistah Pat

I love the outdoors.  Nature is always so full of beauty and unexpected delights.  I ran up to the store to pick up some milk and eggs and was rushing around unloading stuff from the car when a firefly landed right on my hand and everything stood still.  It’s the first one I’ve seen this summer.  I looked around and they’re everywhere.  How could I have missed seeing them?  The little guy took me back to my childhood and gave me some magical memories so I wrote a little poem for him.  Let’s just call it my little Ode to a Firefly.

Long ago and yesterday,
I clutched magic in my hand.
Firefly,
Golden luminescense glowing.

Mystical creatures,
delicate fairies,
dwelling in the dark.
Webs of silver tapestries woven in the night.

Love, foretold in the petals of a flower.

Now, Adulthood and Responsibility
Dictate my thoughts and behavior,
Hard facts and cold logic.
Imagination shattered in the blazing glare of a sun too bright
at noon
to disguise the magician’s slight of hand.

No leprechaun, nor elf
dare hide in my garden.
Magic lives only in children’s books forgotten on the shelf.

Until tonight
Unbidden, unexpected,
a Gift.
Golden firefly lights upon my hand
making me pause,
set down my bags,
and clutch magic once again.

PAR 6/15/08