Night Voices

 “To you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light”
 
-“For the Children” by Gary Snyder
 
 
What does a little light mean
under the rising red moon
and the circling stars
endlessly reaching for a zenith?
Greens yellows ambers blend with moss,
they flicker like a great siren
over the blackened pond.
But what is a waning light –
the fireflies ask again –
to you and your children?
 
Was that the whispered question
of a firefly or a dying star
millions of miles
away from your mind?
Nothing you can touch or take.
But here in this muddled weather
there is a flash of synchrony
when the fireflies entreat you all to join the pattern,
to exhale and dance light as a feather:
Stay together.
 
And what have you left
for any future lights?
What shines when the neon nitrogen mercury
runs out from your urban utopias -
when it has darkened us all,
that which you call power.
Swim through the pond, they say.
Brush the soft algae, inhale the lotus.
Let the purple lily guide you every hour.
Learn the flowers.
 
And what when we fall into statistics
when there are no more fireflies?
Because you pushed away simplicity.
Remember your children,
or just remember wonder.
When you go into that night
turn off your streetlamps
turn off buildings cars endless noise.
Put these down, remember the luminous flight.
Go light.