Today started out cloudy and cold, then the sun beamed out for a while, followed by a brief snowfall, then sun again. And later this week, temperatures may rise into the 60s. Spring’s on the way! As the new season draws near, here’s a poem celebrating very small but significant lives.

 

For the Smaller Sons and Daughters

 

A remembrance at twilight

for the beasts who inhabit the air

fireflies lighting their soft lamps

cicadas hissing mysteriously in trees

ancient mosquitoes fat with blood

delicate honeybees sleeping in the hive.

 

Sweet creatures of the air surround us

lazily drifting, winging earnestly

they pass briefly, we do not attend

their unremarkable death or time.

 

Wings of the bold dragonfly

bumblebee’s aggressive launch

curious hovering of wasps

placid loft of butterflies:

creatures of the moon and sun

they speak to us in touch and flight

their message is the same, the one:

let God be honored in our brief hour and lives.