The Mayflies

By John I. Blair

What calls them, the mayflies,
To fill the air with their dance
Of death and life?

Their slender bodies
Drift across the lake
And pile upon the ground beneath our light
Like a golden snowfall.

One force draws them from the water’s edge
Into the hostile night . . .
A force that spends a million lives
That some survive to breed a million more,
A force that makes me flush within your arms
And know that wisdom’s not what we are for.

©2002 John I. Blair