after a blade of grass, grasped by lightning bug
by Donald S. Yarab
I saw it—yes—just there,
in the silence between breaths:
a blade of grass bowed not by wind
but by a single flicker of light,
that tender emissary of dusk—
the lightning bug,
that priest of fire who blesses every meadow.
O you small bearer of green and gold,
what vast wisdom coils within your tiny belly?
What songs do you blink to the darkened world,
what truths do you flash to the blade you hold?
I, too, have grasped the green earth in my palm—
felt its tremble and thrum,
watched a whole summer declare itself
in the way grass leans toward starlight.
Do not speak to me of empires and theories—
tell me instead how the hush after thunder
is where the soul begins,
how the firefly remembers the sun,
and carries its pulse
through the hollows of night.
Here is your scripture:
dew-wet grass,
the pulse of insect wings,
the scent of warm loam rising at twilight—
and yes, the low chant of crickets,
singing hosannas in the key of soil.
I stand barefoot in this republic of clover,
declaring allegiance to the unnoticed:
to the tree frog’s stillness near an old stump,
the clover’s soft petition beneath my heel,
the breeze that forgets no leaf,
the dandelion seed drifting without regret,
the shimmer barely seen,
the flash in the periphery,
the small, bright pulse that stirs the dusk
and reminds me—ah!—I am alive.
For is it not enough to say:
a lightning bug chose a blade of grass,
and that was revelation?
Northcoast Antiquarian 