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