Fireflies

Out in the country
the stars speak to you.
Sometimes their silver tongues sing
shimmering in vast choirs
in cathedrals of night.
Beneath their singing,
two boys run over dark earth,
racing, tumbling, laughing through the dusk,
fast as a rabbit’s heart beating,
its blood dancing, pulsing through veins…

My twin brother ahead of me,
breathing out brightness
within warm night wind
as we drift through soft streetlight
past glowing orange windows
moving with murmuring shadows,
our legs passing
through the dying fire
of our neighborhood,
feet kicking ashes…

We make our way to the woods,
a moon-illumined labyrinth
filled with the light percussion
of leaves and winding river
and insects gently humming
through the breathing of wildflowers
dreaming out their cool spice…

And I remember.
I remember the fireflies
imprisoned in our amazed hands,
weeping and weeping
their green luminescence,
pleading for release
to meet familiar fires.
But we carried them home
and later we pressed close to the jar
with dark faces
and wide eyes
flecked with the flare
of their loneliness.