Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Little Lightning Bug

Summer is here! If the calendar didn't prove it, everything around us does: the early morning and late evening daylight, the ever-increasing outdoor temperatures (and the constantly running AC), the kids out of school, the early garden harvest (sweet peas!) and one of my favorite things: lightning bugs.

Five years ago in early June and in this same blog space, I wrote the following: 
Lightning Bugs 
As a transplant to the Midwest I was in my mid-30s before I saw my first lightning bug. (For all the Pacific Northwest has to offer, it is not a home to lightning bugs!) I've been here 10 years now, and I still thrill to see these slow-fliers for a few weeks each May and June.
On a warm evening as the boys chase them, catch them, and marvel at their little twinkling lights, I can't help but think that perhaps that is precisely why God made lightning bugs: simply for the wonderment and delight of every child...... and every child within the adult who still marvels too.

Our boys are now 12 and 14 years old and not so interested in chasing and catching the little fellas anymore, but we all still enjoy getting a glimpse of their lights and following them as they take their time twinkling about our back yard. 

My good friend, LongSkirts, wrote the following poem about lightning bugs. I love this poem when she posts it each year about this time:


LITTLE
LIGHTNING
BUG

Little lightning bug
O, fellow
Where'd you get
That torch so yellow

Flicking off
Then flicking on
Right above our
Front yard lawn

Giving children
Merry-mirth
Acolytes
Upon this earth

Keeping lit
Your votive flame
Compline's call
To praise His name

* * *

God Bless You!

2 comments:

Jane Chantal said...

Thank you for this - I'm a transplant to the Midwest too (from California), and share your appreciation of lightning bugs, which first delighted me in Iowa in 1974. Back then, at least in the part of Iowa where I lived, they seldom showed up just as single, drifting sparks as they most often seem to now, but appeared in glittering shoals! It was magical - and I pray that these creatures will always grace our early summer evenings and mornings.

HSMom said...

Thank you for commenting, Jane Chantal! I know exactly what you mean. It seems they are fewer now than when I first got here, and indeed, my husband tells that when he was a kid they appeared more in the shoals you describe. I, too, hope they always come out to delight!