Jennifer Jacobson is a writer and storyteller, as well as Artistic Director of When Children Save the Day®, an award-winning program that engages and inspires young people though experiential learning: uniting community service and language arts.

Essays and fiction by Jennifer have recently appeared in MotherWoman! Hampshire Life and Forum magazine. She is a practitioner of the Amherst Writers & Artists methodology and is delighted to celebrate her creative life with a supportive community.

Poetry by Jennifer Jacobson

July

If I were a girl and you were a firefly
and it were summer,
would I find you?

Would I follow you through wet grass
to moss under the chestnut tree?

Would you let me catch you?

Singing, would I
place you in a jelly jar,
aluminum foil top, feed you twigs,
broken leaves, and chocolate?
Take you to my room and
whisper
until your wings grew cramped and
you lay still, camouflaged by darkness?

Or would I
release you back
to chestnut leaves, mist rising off
the brook, to blue-white light of seven
sisters shimmering? You singing in the
fireworks of the field. Me, quieting my
heart, waiting for moss to grow.

Alighting on my arm, would you
drink the summer plum of my skin?
Would wings emerge from that hidden place under
shoulders? Would I leave
dishes on the table, towels on the line,
overlook bedtime and fly with you?
Would I forget the warmth of
red knit socks? Could we live
hidden in the folds of the rotting
Norwegian pine?

Or would you linger over
dew-filled columbine and tall grass,
silver shafts born of moonlight?
Your deep brown wings the
color of my eyes.
You whispering: What are you?
Me responding: I am awake.

If I asked you, which choice would you
make?

 

Text © Jennifer Jacobson 2005, all rights reserved
Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@JenniferJacobson.net.