"Fireflies from Over in the Meadow" by Ezra Jack Keats

Captives held in bottles and gourds
served as lanterns, fed with slivers of sugarcane.
A coating of syrup had to be washed off the wings
to keep luminous hearts alive.

Young women tied the pulsing insects
onto collars, skirts and hair
turning themselves into constellations
a dance of living stars.

When the British attacked in 1762
throbbing lights in the jungle convinced them
that native troops with torches were rallying
prepared for the ambush, determined to survive.

Between wars, the glow of fireflies was recommended
as the best light for reading love letters
just before writing subtle answers with plumes
plucked from the wings of rare, migratory swans.

BIO: Margarita Engle is a botanist and the Cuban-American author of The Poet Slave of Cuba (forthcoming from Henry Holt), Skywriting (Bantam), and Singing to Cuba (Arte Publico Press). Short works appear in journals such as Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Caribbean Writer, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and a previous issue of Moondance. Awards include a Cintas Fellowship, a San Diego Book Award, and most recently, a 2005 Willow Review Poetry Award. Margarita lives in central California, where she enjoys helping her husband with his volunteer work for a wilderness search-and-rescue dog training program. Email: Englefam@Earthlink.net