Firefly

I watch the Summer's land-lights,
twilight lit till morning leaping, each
a candles flickering flame.

It's long and late they luminate
August's slow and thickening eventide.
Like minute moons they mute appear
amidst the push of dusk
against the blistering sun;
as if amidst a clouded night
when moon and stars are veiled
then sudden seen
through windows where the clouds abate
and just as sudden dim enshrouded,
so the land-lights wax and wane-
like each a quickened moonlife,
new to full,
new to full.

Then September brings a frost
upon its swift and blackening dusk,
galloping great and shapeless.
Evening breaks the weakening day,
its sunset seeming small and distant
casting thin and frail,
a shy semblence of Summer's pyre.
The little moons as well
begin to wane and fail,
casting only crescents
where once they hung afloat and full.

Midnight bound, I find a faltering flash
just beneath the bending blades of grass,
far below the starlit moonlight.
Stooped to kneeling
slight I lift a single blade and stop;
new to crescent,
new to crescent.

A candle dimly lit and flickering,
mute the long-light fades
beneath the night it lighted
Summer long.