Searching for beacons

I settle onto the whicker chaise

as sun bids adieu to the day

and the moon whispers bonjour

from its celestial home.

Waiting for beacons

of the night to emerge

I become anxious as night darkens

and only the streetlamp sheds light.

Three nights I have seached,

yet there are no fireflies this year

as the earth and gardens have dried

becoming deserts of skeleton sticks.

I have lived for decades and this year

is the first without summer beacons,

where we curse the endless fall of snow,

but now it is barren and wanting of moisture

If this is the way of climate change

I feel for the children, and their children

when a simple joy of chasing fireflies

becomes a memory of their ancestors.