With wings that look like smooth wood
or smoky topaz rimmed
with caramel
and bioluminescence beaming
in bellies
like midnight suns
they livened up my childhood
summers along with the freedom
of long days and nights lively
with cricket psalm.
In evening they flashed
slowly and slid softly upwards
and downwards
and lit up my sight—
a thousand golden lamps
in the silent dark.  

Now they are far fewer
a lone one here and there
in the spaces between
street light and flood light   
the spaces in my mind
between the tumbling
umber of dreams
and the roar
of age.