Can you catch a Firefly?

We were born into a world of magic, adults lived in the bright, obvious, serious, boring world, we moved in the shadows, in a world of endless possibility, we were sure of the magic, the air crackled as we moved through it, a familiar pleasant buzz in our ears, life coursing through us, older people went about their dreary days, the buzz silent, toiling, hardly noticing the adventures taking place around them, under foot, those times long forgotten, lost now, buried, hurt, pain, heartache, just for the oldies, we make our world, every moment to come sure to be more amazing than the last, glittering, elusively passing, fading, unknowingly, anticipation our power; churning through the world possessing unadulterated joy, oh so very young, our bodies burning, we knew how special, how rare and transient, but couldn’t quite truly feel it, didn’t care to, conviction weakened with lack of context, consequence not our destroying angel yet, but passion, studying the grain of the tree with earnest intensity. Passion without the crudeness of lust, free from vulgar desire, just before first kisses and crushes, passion for life, for living, for discovering, a world still new in our hands……….

The taste of burnt on our way overdone, dried out burgers, so perfect; with the ketchup dripping down our wrists as we rushed to finish and rejoin the reverie.

The scene changing from bright yellow to dusky brown before settling on a dusky moon lit charcoal, us just silhouettes bounding.

Mosquitoes chased all the while, leaving accepted welts, ignored for now, “Lets out run them!” “Ok!” “Look!” and the cloud of bugs trails after….

We caught fireflies at the edge of the bon fire while the parents all laughed and yelled, a distant garble of noise to us, proof though, that the nite was far from over; we put them in a pickle jar and put some grass in too, in case they got hungry, we poked holes in the top so they could breathe and danced around with our lighted jars, and were sad in the morning when we saw they had died, we dug little holes and buried them just so and moved on to the next game, after oatmeal and things…

At the beach we got too much sun and peeled and ached for days, as we ran back and forth into the icy water, trying to catch the tide the exact moment it changed from high to low. Grasping as the sea escaped through our fingers….

We dug shallow holes that filled with water and made mounds of castles…

We rolled down the cliff and got covered in sand and when we tried to run down our legs sank down to the knee…..

Time to go now, a sleepy buzz behind our eyes, as we ride in the car, with all the widows rolled down and the still hot air blasts our faces, the sun recedes again as another day fades……

We sleep in our still damp swim trunks with dirty feet….