“Glow On”

by Sante Matteo

Wednesday evening, 20 May 2020: A 20/20 Vision

Zoe noses the wet shrubs. Rain brings out fresh scents.

A light flashes to my left. I turn, see nothing.

Shooting star? No, the clouds hang low and dense.

Another flash; same direction: southward, over the road.

This year’s first lightning bug. Already? Too soon.

Out of season, too early to fly out of the pupa stage.

Out of place, too: hovering over the road, away from trees.

Flanking me, keeping pace; is it lured by my penlight,

Looking for a response, a welcome, an invitation?

Sorry, little bug, we're not what you're looking for.

A lone wavering speck twinkling alone in a chilly night:

Glowing off and on; now here, now there; on ... off ... on ... off.

Beaming eagerly, hopefully? Or desperately, uselessly?

A dance to an unheard melody? A code for an arcane message?

Beckoning beacon to a mate? Warning threat to a rival?

Or a solitary, futile quest in a world and a time not yet ready?

It flickers on, now there, now gone. But, no, not gone:

Still there, unseen in the dark, hovering, seeking, expecting.

Small as a sunflower seed, one five-millionth of my weight,

yet grand: an effulgent creator of light that pierces the darkness.

It flutters about on its new wings, seemingly haphazardly,

yet resolutely, unwaveringly toward some impellent end:

To locate and attract a mate, to engender and propagate life.

Another vagrant and resolute propagator lurks in this year's air:

Imperceptible to sight—two billion times smaller than my body,

smaller in relation to the firefly than the firefly is to me,

than I am to the Earth: a novel virus, minuscule and tremendous:

bearer of a planet-spanning scourge that infects, multiplies, kills:

Infinitesimal, immense agent of reproduction and destruction:

Myriad invisible invaders that hijack life and bestow death.

(Like another species that creates and exterminates life,

cultivates and destroys nature: builders and wreckers: us.)

And yet, and yet…  Here we are, and here we must go.

Zoe trots on, pauses to snuzzle and sniff her world amiably.

Leaves have sprouted. Flowers are blooming. Chicks hatch.

Mulberries will soon fill branches and fall to the ground.

In the backyard, a new generation of squirrels for Zoe to chase.

The spasmodic glow of fireflies will fill the summer nights;

myriad companions for tonight's lone stranger if it hangs on.

The chase continues, life continues, and it is good.

Sante Matteo emigrated to the United States from Italy as a child and maintained his ties to Italy as a professor of Italian Studies. In retirement, he has pursued creative writing. Recent memoirs, stories, and poetry have appeared in The Chaffin Journal, Dime Show Review, River River, Snapdragon, The New Southern Fugitives, Ovunque Siamo, and Kairos.