Polishing the words

I love fireflies. I picked the poem ’Fireflies‘ by Marilyn Kallet to learn because it was about fireflies. Simple as that.

But as I began to polish the words and put them in place in my mind I was mildly startled by the lines:

Imagine the presence of ghosts
flickering, the ghosts of young friends,
your father nearest in the distance.
This time they carry no sorrow,
no remorse, their presence is so light.

I’d never considered the weight of my dead before. Or that their weight in my mind might change or be changeable. It seemed that the individual stories came with built in weight. The words of this poem found their way in past the mechanics of learning to be another mantra to chant to myself. Where does the lightness come from? Is it a changing thing…lighter…heavier…lighter?

If I stay with this poem long enough

…the fireflies become fireflies
again, not part of your stories,
as unaware of you as sleep, being
beautiful and quiet all around you.

I love so much how poems take me on a journey…remembrance of fireflies, specific moment of fireflies, remembrance of the dead, remembrance of a specific person, remembrance of childhood, remembrance of a specific moment in childhood, remembrance of fireflies.

Then…now…here…but left with some clearer seeing of the present that was called into being by the travel through the words of the poem. Meditation.