It was one of those nights where the weather people warned of imminent disaster.
I know this because the television told me so and I can see the line of storms
descend upon the city like a horde of multi-colored huns trapped in a little pop up box
in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

Being the curious sort and a lover of thunderstorms
I sat outside in what amounted to a steady drizzle
with a leftover PBR in one hand and a soggy cigarette in the other
(The PBR is another story for another time)
and watched as lightning flickered across the sky

And as I sat there getting wetter and wetter
I made a few mental phone calls to voices from my past.
It came as no shock to hear that the numbers had been disconnected
So I made up the conversations in my head
of what I would’ve said and what I would have liked to hear

And then, as if out of nowhere
The fireflies began to appear in abundance
and one landed on my arm for a second or two
but it felt like an eternity and I thought to myself
“How do they manage to dodge the raindrops?”

Earlier in the day I got a phone call from my kid
She was standing in front of the place I called home for the first seventeen years of my life.
She claimed she was somehow “drawn” to it
And wanted to see where I grew up and maybe, just maybe,
See why I was the me that I became

I guess that’s what triggered those mental phone calls
and to got me to thinking about the child and the firefly,
about how they both have something in common,
The both of them landed in my life and the both of them will eventually take off
because that’s how nature intended it.
But the light they leave behind glows brighter than any sun under the sky

And off in the distance lightning still streaks against the sky
and the sound of thunder is muted by The Band singing a Dylan tune
that goes by the name of “I Shall Be Released”
and the following lines never sounded truer than they did last night
”I’ve seen my light, come shining, from the west down to the east.
Any day now, any day now, I shall be released."

No matter where their journey takes them
or, for that matter, me
or for that matter, you too
May all of us land safely.

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