Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains.
Their soft ridges inked with evergreens and summer leaves. 
Thunder rumbles, rambling over their edges and crashing into the valleys splayed out below.
In the distance, sheets of water rain down,
dancing and swirling, 
making strands of beaded curtains dangling over the forests.

Closer still, a red tailed hawk circles gently on the shifting currents,
spiraling higher and higher over the expanse of golden tipped grasses.
“Over there is its nest.”
My friend stretches his arm and points across the field to a stand of spruce trees

The sky, and all of these beings, pull me from my thoughts that strain and tighten my brow.
It's so easy to get stuck inside. 
But sometimes it's just as easy to soften and open, to look around and listen deeply,
remembering that my life also exists outside of my head.

Lightning bugs swoop in the humid night air
Bursts of bright green light-trails curl in the thick wetness of summer
Echoing fireworks 
Rockets and bombs bursting red glare 
That left trails of smoke drifting in the dark
Covering a city
A forest
A mountain
In yesterday's celebration of our so called Freedom

Today it was hot
And the air humid and thick 
Sweat just sitting and soaking on my body
Making everything sticky to the touch
Flesh to flesh, foot to floor, hand to railing, belly to shirt
But the sun wasn’t one to be left out either 
Beating heat down on my shoulders and neck
Anytime I went outside

Finally though it set
Letting dark skies and a cooler breeze drift in
I sat outside in relief and looked up
Cloud cover hid the stars but were suddenly illuminated with other flashes
Other rumblings 
Thunder this time 
Nature's fireworks

Is Sango celebrating this so called time of independence 
Does this orisa care for our country's ideas of freedom and victory
Does he rejoice in one colonizer overthrowing another
Or is he demonstrating a larger 
Deeper power
Laughing at our little bursts of reds and blues
Our petty explosions in the night air trying to recall the glory of battles won

He plays across the vastness of the heavens
With his bolts of brilliance dancing across the sky
Cloud to cloud
Cloud to earth
Dancing as the air cracks and splits carrying 
His laughter rolling across the treetops
Across the city
Across the mountain
Across the ocean

And what do these fireflies
These lightning bugs 
say to it all
To human and nonhuman echos of light in the night
A night that for them is 
Steady 
Consistent in the summer’s dusk to its deep dark
Their fiery dances will continue 
Long after the smoky haze drifts away 
Long after the summer thunderstorm streams through

What do they notice in the skies above 
Do they see our celebration 
Our godsesses
Maybe their own
Do they reach upwards in ecstasy
Longing to be reunited with the greatness flashing above them

I don't think so
I think they 
As we do
Orient to those who speak a language we understand
Lightning
Lightning bug
Fireworks
Firefly
Those are our words for them
Light and Fire
But what do they call themselves 
They know their people just as we know ours
Yet can we be open to this fire and light on their own terms
To listen and see in their language
Enough to come together in relationship as siblings
As partners
As elders 
or more likely 
as juniors
In this life

They may not see our fireworks as wondrous 
Though they may wonder at them
They may not see lightning as their god
But still relate to its presence 
Or not
As dark deepens I close my laptop 
Letting this light and my thinking rest in the wonder of the dancing that surrounds me