Firefly nights

After dinner tonight, as the sun was beginning to set, I went out to the yard to finish my day’s gardening. By the time I put away my tools, it was dusk. As I passed by the big dogwood tree near the garage, I saw a spark of light in its shade, then an answering flash just a few feet away.

Then more flashes in the darkened flower garden along the garage, as if fireflies had risen up out of the ground, from the mix of tawny daylilies, old roses, goldenrod, asters and lilies that crowd the garden.

Soon I saw fireflies sparking in other dark corners of the yard, under the tall red oak trees where long grass and shrubs thrive, in a garden bed filled with Virginia Roses that entice bumblebees during the day with their blooms, and in the vegetable garden that has become too shady to grow much of a crop. Wherever the night had gathered its shadows, the fireflies had come out to play.

As the yard darkened, they flashed in the stretch of meadow that I let grow up years ago, which has filled in with rugged, dark green goldenrod that reaches four feet tall by June and in August attract bees and butterflies to its flowers. There must have been 50 fireflies around the yard, flashing, it seemed, just for me, to enchant me with their beauty.

Along with the fireflies came the mosquitoes and with them a pair of bats that flitted silently over the yard, taking over from the phoebe that catches bugs on the wing during the day. I wished they could skim past my head and scoop up the mosquitoes I was swatting away from my face.

Finally, the mosquitoes won out over the fireflies. I’d reached my limit on bites and walked up the driveway to check the mailbox before going inside. To my surprise I discovered another congregation of fireflies in my small front yard, where old pasture grass and wildflowers make up the patchwork lawn and the flower bed is another mingling of daylilies, rambling roses, flowers and shrubs. A happy place for fireflies, which twinkled everywhere.

As I stood by the mailbox, I saw that a few fireflies had strayed into the road. A car drove by, swatting them out of its path. Someone hurrying home, the fireflies invisible in the headlight’s glare.

(Photo: Radim Schreiber / fireflyexperience.org)