This page is designed to share the descriptive odes texts we have written in class as a result of our descriptive odes unit of study.  

Dawn Mitchell:   This descriptive ode was written to capture how I feel about the short season of fireflies in our southern summers.   I wanted this piece to be multi-layered and to really capture that I don't just love the fireflies and the season, but the shortness of it that is symbolic, I feel, of all of the things in life I treasure most - childhood, summer, fireflires, and life in general.   My mentor text for this piece was Ron Rash's poem "Price Lake:  1961", "Twilight Comes Twice" by Ralph Fletcher and "Up North at the Cabin" by Marsha Chall.  All of these pieces really zoom in on the moment of time that they treasure and all use specific imagery and vivid detail to really explode the moment and connect the reader to the emotion the imagery invokes.

Flash of Life

What is life?  It is the flash of a firefly in the night…” – Crowfoot Indian

During the magical time

between dusk and dark,

three generations of Johnson women

caught fireflies in cupped hands.

I spent late afternoon

following three year old Lily,

watching her as she skipped

around wide edges of creek bed.

I held my breath,

as I watched her

chase elusive glows,

squealing in wonder.

My tiny sprite, face flushed,

waves of sun-kissed hair trailing

behind her, ran after fireflies,

and held a captive audience.

I followed, carrying in my hands

the thick-glassed Ball jelly jar,

remembering how my mother

once carried it for me.

I remember needing

to keep that jar

of summer magic

on my nightstand table.

I later read that fireflies alight

out of summer-softened ground,

blinking for only two bright weeks,

I wept at the injustice of the jar.

My mother’s hands now lift

my towheaded Hannah

up for a closer look through

sister’s hand on bronze-holed lid.

Night is alive with grins and gasps,

I fold Lily in my arms for a moment,

already squirming to stand alone,

Our hands wrap around the jar.

I gather my group around

as we slowly lift off the lid

to release our glorious catch back

into their short, summer season.

Dawn Johnson Mitchell

June,  2009

Spartanburg Writing Project