Soft are the wings of the firefly princess
Twilight the scene of her flickering dance
Pine needle whispers aflutter of springtime
Alone on this evening in search of romance

Warm April breezes caressing her body
Slumbering daffodils, gold leaf embossed
Shining, her beacon illumines the valley
Twinkling sorrow of love she had lost

Wandering sadly neath evergreen niches  
Shadows and silhouettes bend at her glow
Hard to imagine her tiny heart broken
Far from the beauty this night she does show

When then she sees him alone on a hillside
A pen in his hand as he quietly writes
Silently floating, she lands on his shoulder
Kind is his face that her glow gently lights

Noticing teardrops upon his cheeks falling
“Why are you crying?” she asks him sincere
Startled, he looks at her, eyes wet and weary
“Oh little firefly, what has brought you here?”

He turned away gazing up at the moonlight
Then shook his head as more words he wrote down
“I miss her so much,” he said in a whisper
His mouth once he finished returned to a frown

She knew how he felt for her heart it was broken
One winter’s evening, a cold misty day
Taken from sleep by her jealous big sister
Evil her magic had whisked him away

Just then she noticed that things felt familiar
Something about him jarred her memory
It can not be, visions rambled within her
This can not be my love taken from me  

“If I may ask sir, please when did you lose her?”
She fluttered her wings so excited to hear
Her light now as bright as the full moon above them
Here on this hillside the skies ever clear

“It’s hard to remember, but sometime last winter,
a sorceress came on the solstice I think
From by her side I was suddenly taken,
found myself here just as quick as a wink”

“Since then I’ve cried on this hillside we frolicked,
writing her poetry, words how I feel
Sorrow and sadness in harmonic phrases,
verses my broken heart could not conceal”

“The saddest part is, it is merely a feeling,
only the love is what I can recall
I know she was real for my heart does remind me,
the rest is a blur, almost nothing at all”

She thought and she thought of her wicked old sibling
Remembering tears drops from lovers that fell
When mixed together might change what had happened
Glistening together, they could break the spell

She took one of hers that she saved since December
Flew to his cheek were a steady stream flowed
Placed her own teardrop within his now weeping
To her amazement, his body it glowed

Shimmering sparkles like fireworks bursting
A magical sheen filled the heavens above
A blink of her eye and he changed right before her
He now was a firefly, the one that she loved

His eyes grew as wide as a sunflower smiling
Flapping his wings like he’d never before
Looking at her, his light brightly was gleaming
He said, “I remember, you’re the one I adore”

He was so happy, he flew up and kissed her
“I missed you,” he said “never leave me again
We’ll fly and we’ll hide far away from your sister”
Then he looked down and he noticed his pen

He lifted it up and then flew to the paper
Flapping his wings he penned one final line
It read that they lived happily ever after
From now in this moment, till the end of time

.

Empty,
this heart is desolate
a barren wasteland
of what ifs and waiting
for words no longer needed,
no longer wanted,
no longer heard
poetic failures
from a poetic failure,
crawling, pleading,
fading fast

Sun bleached and brittle,
in an instant
all is gone,
lost to the shifting sands,
deserted, abandoned,
cast aside as bones
begging for flesh,
for blood, for breaths,
chewed and spit
by the scavengers,
taking what is not theirs,
feasting on the loser,
laughing at his tears

Such a sight,
he bought it, all of it,
the promises, the lies
disguised as dreams,
shiny lures, bait…taken
at this dry lake bed,
blistering shores,
blinded by her vision,
walking away,
sorry

Still hearing the echoes. . .
he’s got a gold mine,
a poetic gold mine,
you’ve got dust,
beige, drab dust,
minute particles,
filling your pockets,
weighing down steps,
lower into the sand,
waving goodbye

To a love
that turned out to be a mirage,
as the oasis crumbles
(the oasis crumbles)
beneath black wings,
beaded eyes
still circling overhead,
calling his name
orbiting his life,
hungry for his death,
licking parched lips
caked and crackling
stealing everything
held in his heart,
picked clean,
empty