Is This Depression?
I caught a firefly in a jar
because I couldn’t remember
doing it as a child
Because it laid at my feet
like a crashed offering
A shiny object
that caught my attention
like the early morning drowning
when I thought about the ocean
‘why did I ever leave it?’
‘how can I live without it?’
‘why is it so big?’
The firefly blinked twice
before it sunk to the bottom
I took off the cover to let it go
like I got out of bed
and made breakfast that morning
like I saved myself from the tug
of the mind’s dark undertow
______Colleen Redman / Poets United
August 5th, 2018 10:37 am
“mind’s dark undertow” sometimes catch us unaware. Love the firefly analogy.
August 5th, 2018 11:42 am
It’s always a great accomplishment to save one’s self from the mind’s dark undertow. Sometime I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. Maybe a firefly is the answer. Or maybe not.
August 5th, 2018 11:42 am
Oh wow! That opening stanza just stops the breath, held in the moment, at the wonder, and then the dissolution, a slow and silent cascading of thoughts of “how did this come to be” … as the waves of something, a wealth of emotions, dis\placed comes to bear … this is a quiet poem, that speaks to the darker spaces we all inhabit but prefer to avoid; I suspect part of the answer is learning how to not “rest at the bottom” for too long ~
August 5th, 2018 11:50 am
I love this, especially the closing lines. Powerful!
August 5th, 2018 11:52 am
Yes, it can all sneak up on us, unexpected….a really wonderful poem. I’m glad you saved yourself, for another day.
August 5th, 2018 12:11 pm
I love how it builds already from the title… at first I sensed going back to childhood, and then the release which is what a grown-up does…
August 5th, 2018 12:49 pm
I found the use of a childhood curiosity to overcome a more adult regret moving, especially seeing the self in the firefly
August 5th, 2018 3:03 pm
This is beautifully haunting! ? Love the firefly analogy!
August 5th, 2018 3:53 pm
O! Such inter-reflection, inflection, grief. Love.
August 5th, 2018 6:17 pm
I am glad you let the firefly go. I never captured one in a jar as a child either. Never had the urge to.
August 5th, 2018 8:30 pm
What beautiful introspection of those recurring why’s in life. It is as though the wind and the tide have pushed and pulled us through life until you think “Just why am I here?”
August 5th, 2018 9:24 pm
I think there are times in life we need the light of a firefly to help us through the darkness and sometimes we need to set it free so we can find inner light.
August 5th, 2018 11:11 pm
The firefly is a beautiful ‘letting-go’ image,and it was interesting that you ended your poem by comparing saving yourself by letting it go to letting go to the act of getting out of bed to make breakfast … I appreciate your beautiful words and images so much, but I am such a prosaic person and that latter simple act saves me from that undertow many mornings.
August 6th, 2018 6:19 am
Such a powerful phrase, ‘the mind’s dark undertow’! Long may you resist being pulled under