Fireflies: Poems

Debut collection of poetry from an award-winning nature writer

Fireflies is a collection of lyrci poems- formal and informal-that seek solace in nature and memory for the heartache of being human.

From children chasing fireflies at night to middle agers chasing lost loves at three in the morning, they trace the compromises we make to make it-the dead mice, cats, fetuses, and loves left in our wakes. And they celebrate the tenuous survival of trees, love, and innocence.

MONARCHS

Monarchs ride fall’s cold fronts south in waves,

warming us in thin orange blankets stitched by a million nearly mindless threads

weaving arabesques bright as autumn leaves.

I too would leave, run with the wind, and wave goodbye to all of this, fly a carpet

over the Appalachians’ parapets,

high above the Mississippi’s swerves,

head south to the Gulf and west to Texas, crossing the Rio in a grander, drier river, through

Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, into Michoacan’s fabled forest firs

and winter where the trees are hung with wealth undreamt by Bogarts mucking gold beneath.