Fireflies

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Fireflies

Like the tips of smoldering sticks or coals
they glow in the grass. The light over all
begins to go. Night like a swooping bat
or bats comes down from clouds and the white pines
out of the vast abyss where a star shines.

As eyes must blink they flash and fade, off, on
pervade, catch flame from grass to bush, move up
the bark into the trees out to the end
of every branch blooming against the dark
twinkling a bright light gently defiant.

While the constellations stretch and cover
—cups, horses, virgins, snakes, myriads
of truth and myth—endless little fires
rise up all the pines coupling at the spires
with heavenly light and then are the stars.