the lightning and the lightning bug

I know there are lots of things I should be blogging about, like the Oracular Orb Android App and being taken kayaking by my trainer and the poor bee who got stuck in my hair, and the strangeness of spending days with a New Yorker writer, and potato salad recipes, but they can all wait.

I took the dog out for a walk tonight, and together we wandered across the meadow next door. It was a warm summer's night, dark, and moonless. There were a handful of fireflies flickering intermittently, some so close to me I could see they were burning green as they flew, and some further away, who seemed to be flashing white.

And in the sky above them a continual roil of distant summer lightning (the storm distant enough that it was silent) burned and flashed and illuminated the clouds. It seemed as if the lightning bugs were talking to the lightning, in a perfect call and response of flash and counterflash. I watched the sky and the meadow flash and flash while the dog walked ahead of me, and realised that I was perfectly happy...

Labels: less than 100000 fireflies