Was it for nothing that the blueberry
      In the backyard,
            Its fruit consumed,
      Its year’s growth pruned,
            Caught fire one morning?
I took off my shoes, there in the kitchen,
      Beholding it aflame.

Is this newfound bioluminescence?
      Can a shrub throb with photons
            As surely as neon waves,
      Plankton, a lampshade jelly,
            The lure of a dragonfish,
Alive with luciferin like foxfire
      That startles campers awake?

All life must glow, as dewdrops on a fern,
      The shimmer of scales
            On a fritillary wing,
      Mucosal sheen of a passing slug.
            If the paper-skin of the deceased
Can be translucent, then a blueberry
      Bush may burn yet not be consumed.

Light is not light unless compared to dark,
      And so my squinting
            At the world, charged as it is,
      Is for the dullness of my soul.
            What sparkles through the glass
So dimly may be glory, or it may
      Be the devil, crouching at the door.

Image: Blueberry bush, my backyard, November 2018.