C’mon, put the lid on them chided my cousins,

but I never could; instead,

I would cover the jar with my hand

So they could still breathe.

My sister said I was probably a firefly

in a previous life.

But fireflies or lightning bugs

are neither flies nor bugs.

They are homely looking

beetles by day,

with hard black forewings

a red head, and two long antennae.

At night they become fairies,

flying and flashing about in a

a mating dance, creatures that are the most

efficient light producers in the world.

Science has discovered that humans glow—

We emit light that is one thousand times less

visible than our eyes can detect.

light caused by free radicals, both good and harmful.

Aging is the gradual accumulation of free radicals.

The older we get, the more we glow.

Perhaps we are like fireflies after all,

bioluminescent— and the light we see as we pass