To Love a Firefly

Time has chased the brightness
of partially lit avenues,
only to find concrete
like lonely moonlight,
and empty creases where
laughter should have
echoed.

There seems no reason
for the stars to shine down
on bare corners of the past...

For reality has never indulged
in dreams, forcing away life's
gust of filming dreamers
who came solely to catch fireflies
at summer's beginning age.

Yet the end is always pensive,
when children are remembered
in full-mooned twilight,
and I, like them,

wanting not only to keep
lucid lightning on my fingertips
but to love a firefly, as if
there would be no fleeting
remorse.

Written 7/2/2012 at 1:15 am.