Conversations Between Fireflies
Or lightning bugs, as I call them.
To come back from a hiatus, I needed the inspiration to write a poem for the first time in years. It didn’t have to be good; it just had to feel grounded in the reality I’m watching unfold in front of me. I made this commitment to myself months ago. I would return to writing regularly, occasionally publishing for the six subscribers [hi, family] I hold dear.
In come the lightning bugs.
The fireflies vs. lightning bugs question was a staple of my midwestern upbringing. The medley of deeply southern and baseline midwestern accents and dialects present where I grew up led to everyone I knew saying something different. But my brother-in-law put it best: fireflies are for romance. Lightning bugs are for excitement.
So my poem holds to his wisdom. Fireflies are for romance.
Tonight I watched two fireflies talk.
Two lonely souls murmuring and calling out
Across the vast expanse of a neighbor’s back yard
And I wonder if they love one another
Or if a lack of options will create tenderness from necessity.
I think when humans have died out
When the giants of our species have commited to the mass murder-suicide
The few of us who remain will break out the radio
And across vast distances
Find tenderness in the necessity of life
And the urge to keep loving will overpower the
Empty nest of mass extinction.
In the summers following my Kansan upbringing, I have seen fewer and fewer lightning bugs in the June-August nights. This is unsurprising. As a planet, we are in the midst of our third mass extinction event. 75% of insect biomass worldwide has fallen by the wayside in the past 50 years. My heart breaks for our tiniest friends, whom we could not live without. I want to hold the hand of every biologist and entomologist who has begged the world to care for the creatures going extinct around the world, no matter how small their purpose is.
I would not be the first to blame the greedy above us for the deaths of the smallest below us. My recent move to East Tennessee has placed me in the palm of American anti-overlord history. So, in the heart of independence and the most biodiverse region in North America, the importance of conservation feels tantamount to the conversation of resistance. In the aftermath of Helene, even more so. Entire habitats, swathes of homes, human and animal, have been wiped from the map, and nearly a year later, the lack of response from The Man rings a bell far too familiar for Appalachians. Once again, we must be our own saviors, this time choosing to abandon the hyper-individualism our government steepes us in. Never in history have we been alone. Only arm in arm, we shall overcome.
I can’t seem to break 500 words. Inspiration must strike more often and with more fervor.