Blending memory with mythic imagery, this poem revisits childhood nights colored by fear, wonder, and the pull of home. The cicada's imagined chorus frames a journey through dusk into darkness, where owls, a hunting dog's howl, and gathering shadows evoke dread, yet fireflies and a glowing window promise safety. Both lullaby and incantation, it captures the fragile passage from childhood awe to the comfort of return.

Just lately
this persistent rise and fall
of nonexistent cicada chorus
ringing in my ears
recalls how childhood evenings fell

how the sun abruptly dropped
below Old Farm Hill's crest
an exhausted orange ball
so done with day
how lilaceous morning skies
turned uncontrollably indigo
and like some small Neanderthal
I feared the sun would not return

how I put away playthings
and reluctant took
the once bright path
that downhill now
turned ominous and dark
deep with gathered shadows
mysterious with owls
and flap of wings invisible
heavy with howl
of Papa's old hunting dog
and fearsome hidden things

how with silver-fingered moon
insistent on my shoulders
I unwilling left
always wanting more
and feared the night and nothingness
of sleep

then once I cleared the crest
and started down
how the many-candled window
of Mama's house
grew bright against the dark
how fireflies lifted
tiny, ineffective lanterns
toward the stars
as ebb and rise of cicada
sang me home.

Carla Martin-Wood