Lights Out
I mistook the fireflies for your headlights
coming down the gravel driveway
A distant car on the Parkway
could be yours
I remember waiting for my dad
to come home from work in the rain
and worrying that he wouldn’t
during Hurricane Carol in 1953
Now the light fades out
like the end of a life
and I’m sad even in summer
in bare feet with fireflies
that twinkle like stars
trying to jump their way
back to heaven
_______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
July 1st, 2022 8:53 am
How arresting – that final image! And the whole very evocative; utterly personal, yet full of details we can all relate to from our own experience..
July 1st, 2022 10:05 am
I have always marvelled at the little fireflies with their bright sparkling lights. I like your version of their what’s and why’s, guess I have joined them also, being pretty old.
..
July 1st, 2022 2:16 pm
I’m sad that you’re sad C’est la vie !
July 1st, 2022 9:03 pm
trying to jump their way
back to heaven
Things change after some time but still efforts can be made to right things up as before. Nice thoughts Colleen!
Hank
July 2nd, 2022 12:16 am
and I’m sad even in summer
in bare feet with fireflies… such a desolate image…heartbreaking but can hear music in the background…
July 2nd, 2022 11:09 am
I share the speaker’s sadness even in summer. Actually, it’s summer itself that makes me sad. Give me the bracing days of autumn or the bitter-cold days of winter over the sad, but sizzling days of summer.
July 2nd, 2022 5:22 pm
When I was a child, back in the Dominican Republic, we used to follow fireflies at the end of October. We did this because there were so many stories about fireflies being the souls of the dead. The last stanza of your poem took me back there.
July 3rd, 2022 2:08 am
Why are fireflies sad? because they help to light the way. ( i am thinking about that animation movie Grave of the Fireflies).
Like Rosemary said, this poem is full of details that we all can relate to.
July 3rd, 2022 8:34 am
I also agree with Rosemary. Sometimes the most beautiful things take on a tinge of sadness when they remind us of the ones who aren’t with us anymore.
July 4th, 2022 11:36 am
Lovely poetry ~ a trip back to my childhood as I waited by our back door waiting for Daddy to come home from what I believed to be a dangerous job building houses. He did walk thru the back door until I was sixteen …. and then no more. I still miss him at 80.
July 7th, 2022 12:38 pm
It’s always sad when the light fades out. These fireflies spark memories of my own father
July 7th, 2022 7:53 pm
Even in sadness there is joy, I’ve found. Maybe I’m fooling myself.