Are fireflies disappearing like the honey bees? I haven't seen one in a long time. When we were kids we used to go outside after supper on summer evenings and try to catch them in jars, then let them go again.
My father worked the evening shift at the plant, so we had our main meal of the day, dinner, at noon. Supper was a smaller meal, usually at 5 o'clock, leaving time in the evenings to chase fireflies or play hide and seek while my mother watched from the front steps.
The following poem is wonderful, even the title.
Slow Children at Play
by Cecilia Woloch
All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home-
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, These are my children,
thinking, Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone?
And, on the same subject, only different, a poem by Robert Frost.
Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
