I sit here observing fireflies
contemplating what it’s like to die.

What it’s like to be spread across
the universe in cascades of stars.

Their lights flicker, bright and dim
patterns older than humanity 

scattered throughout the yard
down into the creek.

I think about our distance,
our separate lives,

how we should share more,
but it never feels like enough.

Tree frogs call out for love
from the shadowed edges of woods

no different than me,
longing for kinship, for more, 

for those connections like blinking
lights, solid and electric,
 
but here we are,
alone in the yard

watching a fire burn.