Fireflies

The lake was beautiful, astonishing that you made it.  A man that made a lake! It sounded like a Paul Bunyan sized tale to a small child, but you did it, magic was real!

Every precious perch and trout made a journey with you there. Placed in new fresh water, they would thrive in this carefully made home.

I remember pulling your whiskers while I sat on your lap before bedtime. You smelled of Ivory soap and aftershave, your T-shirts were always soft and brilliantly white.

"Ow! Why you wanna do that?!"  We would giggle that silly bad giggle, a little girl with her best friend, making trouble and squeezing into your safety with all my tiny might.

The simple things about my life with you are captured, they are a scene of love like Polaroids kept bound in a secret folio, my memories a priceless treasure.

Seeing you in your bed that day was pain that shattered my gentle heart. The study of you, my ideas of man, my patriarch was leaving, traveling small and frail into the dark.

Fireflies were lighting your way, while you talked about the universe and being far away. Traversing all that frightened you, finding a reconciled final view, they led you with their glow of soft respite.

I have a family now that you never knew,  I'd love for them to sit on the lake with you.  To be at peace on the mountainside all of us quiet taking in painterly skies.  Listening to the streams together, pulling your whiskers tenderly, imagining all these things I can see your fireflies sparkling.