I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching them in the late June nights.  Something more magical than the passing airplanes’ guiding lights, the high ones bound for Europe, the low ones bound for the sprawling cities of the East coast.  No, the fireflies can’t be mistaken for those, nor for the high, remote grandeur of the stars.  Yet, there is a magic of life in the those lights in the trees, drifting down and across the meadow.  Made, perhaps, even more so by knowing that in the day, they are truly unprepossessing bugs.

In today’s world of manicured, short lawns well sprayed with God knows what and trees conjured from the architect’s rendering, fireflies are ever rarer. That I can watch them from the porch, that is a rich gift and not a small one. They launch from the great vastness of the Magnolia, the Tulip tree, the oaks, and the hedgerows.  Out, out into the wide space of the meadow. What a journey for that tiny spark, not knowing what lies ahead, but the promise of instinct and of life.