Lightning bugs flatter me
They regard each of my branches as a grand palace
Just today I overheard one of them saying a single branch had
one hundred thirty-seven prime places to perch
(and over four hundred mediocre places)
His abdomen flashed blue-white, which is hardly surprising
Though of course he was doing it just for me
Because all lightning bugs are silly, and think I am here just for them.
Today a man saw lightning bugs superimposed
on a cloudy horizon decorated with lightning
That’s right, just regular old lightning
He was a short man, not more than three meters tall
(though Grandpa told me a man that size can do fiercesome things
with a bow-saw)
Yet the sky performed its background to the lightning bugs' dance
And he thought it was there just for him.
The lightning bugs never fly so high as when they want to reach my tops
(you can call them turrets, if you want, and imagine them made of stone)
They never fly as high as an airplane
looking down on me, thinking I’m short and forgetting me quickly
Nor do the squirrels, or the crows, or the pleasanter birds
No matter how many friends perch in my branches, it is no burden to bear
For a palace
of a few cubic meters
of softwood.
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