Poetry Friday: "Fireflies" by Frank Ormsby

Do you call them lightning bugs or fireflies? 

Glow worms? 

Something else? 

Whatever you call them, they've probably provided you with a little wonder and a lot of enchantment. I've always been charmed and intrigued by these tiny summer lanterns. As poet Frank Ormsby asks, "What should we make of fireflies, their quick flare/of promise and disappointment, their throwaway style?" 

And just in case you want to know more than you ever thought you'd be able to learn about lightning bugs, I'll point you (just follow the glowing lights) to one of my favorite podcasts, Alie Ward's Ologies. This episode is all about lampyridology. As always happens when I listen to Ologies, I had no idea that I wanted to know this much about the subject at hand. I'm always completely sucked in by each episode and end up sharing fascinating factoids over dinner. ("You will not believe how disgusting baby lightning bugs are! They basically hunt in packs!"*)

* See page 7 of the transcript for the horrifying, funny, interesting conversation about these predatory babies. 

And now, back to something not disgusting and not horrifying: this week's poem. 

Fireflies
by Frank Ormsby

The lights come on and stay on under the trees.
Visibly a whole neighborhood inhabits the dusk,
so punctual and in place it seems to deny
dark its dominion. Nothing will go astray,
the porch lamps promise. Sudden, as though a match
failed to ignite at the foot of the garden, the first squibs
trouble the eye. Impossible not to share
that sportive, abortive, clumsy, where-are-we-now
dalliance with night, such soothing relentlessness.
What should we make of fireflies, their quick flare
of promise and disappointment, their throwaway style?
....
(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

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The Poetry Friday round-up can be found this week at Bookseed Studio. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.