To hear the late-evening timbre
of a mid-August thunderstorm
coursing over the hills
of North Georgia,
I left my studio,
joint in hand.
I shut off the porch light
to keep away
fucking mosquitos,
and brought with me
my tried and trusty
rocking camping chair.
I unfolded and reclined
in the sturdy but
comfortable gray canvas,
knowing it would
effortlessly
hold my weight.
With the dusk all to myself,
I raised a Bic lighter
to the wick of the matter
and mouth puffed it
like a cigar
to get the embers rolling.
Exhaling towers
of yellow haze
like Smaug the Terrible,
in my lonely solitude,
I rocked to and fro
on a shadowy
slab of concrete,
and let the sounds
of the world
wash over me.
In the midst of
cricket song,
rain rhythms,
the hum of air conditioning;
I noticed
something strange.
Far out of season,
a swarm of fireflies
had taken to flight
in the back parking lot
of my apartment complex.
In the rain,
no less.
Every time
I sparked the joint,
a few of them glittered
from the tops
of the forest trees
and their waving leaves,
to the freshly laid asphalt
that no longer stank
of burnt rubber—
a pleasant contrast
to the budding night.
It was not lost upon me,
in that rare moment,
that my own week had been
quite the difficult one.
Nor that fireflies
around August,
were an alarming indicator
of the immediate effects
of anthropogenic
climate change
in my everyday life.
But the way I saw it,
being incredibly high
at that point,
my car was back
from the tow lot,
and there were warm
fudge brownies
waiting inside.
And worth admitting,
vanilla bean ice cream
to accompany.
So,
I suppose it was not
such a bad weekend.