Wishes, Connection, Frogs and Fireflys

Wishes

I would be a goat, reaching heights

by confident trails.

I would be a vixen hunting; a drove of pigs

furrowing a field.

I would have mother’s vision, seeing all life in

a baby’s smile.

I would be a Zen sage, reducing wisdom

to a koan,

and draw on our globe, a map upon which

all could find their

clear-cut manifestations of divine ambiguity.

Connection

Throughout dark months, I had been in doubt,

does awareness bring outside in while permitting

inside out? Then, one burnished morning,

when sun hovered like a kestrel and ladybirds

promenaded greenhouse glass, I opened

the sash we had shut against winter.

Similar events had happened before at the other

end of the year: sycamore seeds had spun,

and beautiful thoughts had extended a mycelium

under leaf-mold. Then I knew, for most of my life,

peddlers of pedestrian truths had been defining

my world, yet I never could ignore the rustling

of insects revealing their fragments of light.

Each winter draws ladybirds between

frame and sash, mist, a veil under the blue.

Dewdrops glistening on twigs, invert the world.

Suddenly upside-down, I reestablished faith.

Without a doubt, awareness calls outside in,

and at the same stroke, permits inside out.         

Frogs and Fireflies

Dusk drains amber and emerald

from ruby skies.

Flickering lights above darkening pond

beckon to follow fireflies.

There are also frogs, a sprung spring-chorus,

a chant of tipsy minstrels.

As voices shift in reeds, I reset my footing,

now finding myself angled

like the tower on Piazza of Miracles.

Soon my soul, damp with immersion

shall merge with collective mind where I sense

extensions reaching like water, like rain.

This grasp will endure, unlike fireflies’

short-lived transcendence, as fluids

meander in aquatic languor, and I belong,

at last, to my family, below

flashing displays in aspiring skies.

By Misha Norland