School is about to start again, which marks the end of summer for a lot of us, but I wanted to offer up one more taste of summer before we say goodbye to another year. Do you remember catching fireflies (we called them lightning bugs)? Can you still hear the sound of cicadas where you live? What is your favorite summertime memory? I’d love to hear from you.
Reverence
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub
The air vibrated
with the sound of cicadas
on those hot Missouri nights after sundown
when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn,
sank into their slung-back canvas chairs
tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat
and we sisters chased fireflies
reaching for them in the dark
admiring their compact black bodies
their orange stripes and seeking antennas
as they crawled to our fingertips
and clicked open into the night air.
In all the days and years that have followed,
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced
that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
that was as palpable
as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:
my sisters running around with me in the dark,
the murmur of the grown-ups’ voices,
the way reverence mixes with amazement
to see such a small body
emit so much light.
“Reverence” by Julie Cadwallader-Staub, from Friends Journal. ©Religious Society of Friends.
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What came instantly to my mind was dizzy dancing. In the evenings while my parents relaxed on the patio, my brother and sister and I would twirl around until we fell to the ground laughing, our head spinning, the stars above spinning. A childhood natural high. And, yes, cicadas singing, always!
The first time I saw fireflies was on a road trip with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. We were in Kansas visiting and someone gave us each a canning jar for the California cousins to catch fireflies. I remember they flew slow, like the air is thick, flashing the light on their behind like a lighthouse beam. We had a grand time dancing and laughing around the yard while the adults talked.
In the morning we found the fireflies dead. No one had realized we didn’t know to go to the shed and hammer some nail holes in the lid. I’ve learned dramatically the power of ignorance and sprinkled their little bodies under a rose bush. Then I threw away a perfectly good canning jar.
I’ll always remember dancing around with delight, all knees and elbows, seeing fireflies for the first time.
This poem is so good.
Makes you think that there’s no point in writing.
https://glynpope.blogspot.com/
What great memories. Thanks, Anne and Nadine, for stopping by and sharing such wonderful images!
Hi Glyn,
I know what you mean, but I think we have to carry on and write anyway.
Thanks for stopping by!