MARY CRESSWELL

 

Ingathering

 
We didn’t think 
it would happen yet, 
not now or soon. 
 
Nevertheless, 
there it was: news as 
ugly as the word 
 
imploding the evening. 
Shall I light a candle 
against the next demand? 
 
No. We’ll wait a minute, 
watch the fireflies feint and fade: 
blips of self-inflicted shine, 
 
falling inward like the summer, 
useless as words to lighten loss. 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Cresswell is a Wellington poet. She has published work in a variety of print and online journals, in NZ and overseas (mainly in the US). She is co-author of Millionaire’s Shortbread (U Otago, 2003). 

Mary says this poem responds to the death of a friend — a marine biologist, so she is not sure where the fireflies flew in from. In actual fact, she says, they might be the phosphorescence that rides on the edges of waves.