The Memory of Fireflies

Balmy summer evenings when I was small
and the air was so thick you could drink it,
and the soft breeze caressed your face
warm like the hand of your mother,
we played in the yard under the Southern sky
where the radiance of stars
illuminated the way for small feet
on the welcoming grass.

With Mason jars we sought to capture
the fleeting lights that
sparkled and danced
across our vision like tiny fairies
elusive and beautiful,

and life

seemed so redolent with sweet promise
and joy imbued each moment
like fresh strawberries on the tongue.

The memory warms the cold nights
when the pains of age come calling
and sleep flees like a frightened thief.

Those days then when all was well
seem dreamlike in retrospect
as if they happened to someone else
in another life
where the light of God
replaces the sun
and streets are paved with gold.

but no

was not heaven, but earth
viewed by a child whose only care
was how many twinkling lights
he could put in his jar
before Mama called him to bed
and sleep found him
and dreams came of dancing lights
and the future was a friendly place
not yet replaced by
life’s cold verities.

**

Vita Iussu Deus
Life at the Command of God

I watch my wife tenderly kiss
my dying mother’s brow
as we depart, not knowing.

The wasted form lying still
on death’s prosaic bed
but a distant vision.

The strong woman who bore me
suckled me, comforted me
at the mercy of cancer
and of God.

Her life perilously near its end
she lies quiet, unresponsive
only a dim reflection
of the life now mostly lived.

I can scarcely think of the past
but to be overcome
with wordless melancholy.
Those days when life seemed
like a glorious winding road
stretching endlessly toward
glorious vistas
and unlimited possibilities.

When a warm embrace
upon skinning a knee
or losing a game
was all.

When aromatic delights
greeted us at suppertime
prepared by the hands
that now rest attenuated
on her frail breast.

When one word of praise
from her lips
set a young heart leaping,
she who was
a rock and a foundation.

No longer.

I look at my grandchild,
her perpetual movement
and exuberant laughter
at eight months just beginning.

The world is hilarity
and fascination.
It is hope
and broad horizons.

But the ending,
oh, the ending.
The painful parting.
The mournful goodbye.

Life begins and it ends
in very different ways.