Lake Lida in the Dark of a Moonless Night

Lake Lida in the Dark of a Moonless Night

You’ve been careful to go off by yourself
Up to Sylvan Pond, hoping for clear night sky.
Your little sister Jodie comes running out to you.
She wants to know if you have seen glow bugs.
Her flashlight lens is covered in red cellophane and
She is careful to keep it pointed at the ground.
You tell her as if with the back of the hand:
“It’s too late in the summer for bioluminescence.”
She says to you that you do not know it all -- at all!
There’s always next year you tell her and
You remember it’s been four years
Since you last saw fireflies and
Have told her every year since
That she maybe one day would be so lucky
As to have seen lightening bugs too.
If you ask, she saw fireflies that night.
All I remember is what I went out to see:
The night sky with the Milky Way
Smudged across the southern sky
And to see star light off the pond.

From A Few Memories Before Sleep
by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber.
© 2014 by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber. All rights reserved.