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The air vibrated
with the sound of cicadas
on those hot Missouri nights after sundown
when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn,
sank into their slung-back canvas chairs
tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat
and we sisters chased fireflies
reaching for them in the dark
admiring their compact black bodies
their orange stripes and seeking antennas
as they crawled to our fingertips
and clicked open into the night air.
In all the days and years that have followed,
I don't know that I've ever experienced
that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
that was as palpable
as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:
my sisters running around with me in the dark,
the murmur of the grown-ups' voices,
the way reverence mixes with amazement
to see such a small body
emit so much light.
Used with the author’s permission and with permission granted by Friends Journal, the monthly Quaker magazine, where it first appeared.
Copyright by Julie Cadwallader-Staub.
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Julie Cadwallader-Staub grew up in Minnesota with five sisters, her parents and a dog, beside one of that state’s small lakes. Her favorite words to hear growing up were, “Now you girls go outside and play.” She now lives in Vermont and still loves to explore the natural world out her back door. Julie's poems have been published in several journals and magazines, and included in anthologies such as The Cancer Poetry Project. She was awarded a Vermont Council on the Arts grant for poetry in 2001 and won an Honorable Mention in the Muriel Comstock Bailey contest in 2003. Her first collection of poems, Face to Face, will be published by Cascadia Press next year. Says Julie, "I bought a book about 10 years ago -- A Poem A Day -- that re-kindled my great love of poetry and encouraged me to get serious about it.”
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