Magic in a Jar

to look at the moonless black night being pierced by fireflies, or lightning bugs, depending on where you live. I can feel my small hand in my dad's big hand, mesmerized by this show...there is some profound lyric lesson in witnessing an unfathomably beautiful event in the dark night...

--Ross Gay "Fireflies"

Upon reading this essay, memories flooded and I had to write  the following:

"You have to wait until your father's birthday,"

my mother would tell us when

our summer started as school ended,

early June too soon for the seductive charm

of the lampyrideae noctiluca

so we waited until we could chase

down those lightning bugs when 

the sun set and they would

mysteriously appear from 

who-knows-where

lifting up into the darkening yard,

the JIF jar at the ready

the "hole-y" lid prepped ahead

so we could bottle their magic

feed them some grass, and then

toss them out in the morning.

Grief is like a seashell…

 For Jill

The other day, my friend Jill sent me this little poem about grief. 

I had to giggle since I had just purchased this t-shirt.

 I decided right there and then I would write about grief as a seashell. 

I combed through the box of shells that Jim had left behind, ones he had collected. And what a collection! I like knowing that there was a day in his life he discovered each of these beauties and cared enough to come home and organize them into a box I would find after he was gone.

Grief is like a seashell

it comes in endless forms

One time it may be like a spike

Another time, an all out strike...

Some days with grief are

smooth like a shell

which has rolled around in the tide...

The water of the tide being tears cried...

And just as the shells lie in the ocean

out of sight, submerged,

So it is with grief

always there

waiting to emerge.