Muggy, hot moisture seeps into your lungs

and holds itself there, as if a spellbound stranger

 

until the sun hails goodnight and departs, ever

busy, for the other side of this flushed Earth,

 

taking the hot and the wet with it. You sigh and lean your head back.

To your left, a lightning bug flares at you –

 

a burst of cold light that you could not find at home.

You are fascinated. They do not flash where you

 

come from, west of the Rockies, because there is still not enough hot and

not enough wet to sustain them. You know, now, that

 

home means no sustenance and a dim, red light and here means fuel,

here means bright green light go: yes, this nature. Yes, this heat. Yes, this moisture.

 

Is it this, the one spark that makes all the difference?

From coast to coast, we are all the same, hearts captured with light;

 

and yet the same creatures are either ignored or adored,

all on account of a touch of luminescence on their soft, drab-colored bodies.

 

So look well, while you can, and maybe

you will miss home a little less, for (despite this hot, this

wet) there are fireflies.