A Summer Evening Between Myths
by Royce Sykes

Beyond haloes
of building lights,
among shadows
along the street,

cicadas croak
rhythmically
as fireflies
flit and flutter;

dancing as if
in worship of
those distant glows
spangled across

the indigo
of the heavens.
Yet, we are told
by the shamans

of Science these
behaviors are
no more than
evolved instincts

to assure the
propagation
of the species.
Still, as I watch

and listen in
the dark when sweat
of day gives way
to fog of night,

there's a sense in
the luminous,
just a touch of
the numinous.

My life seems thus
ambiguous,
straddling what
is real, with one

foot in the myths
of science and
the other in
the midst of dreams.

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