Summer Fireflies and You

Summer nights are like crushed dreams, even the moonlight has the sweetness of being tipsy. Fireflies carried green lanterns and wrote poems on the moist riverside, and the rhythm of flickering light and dark fell on the shadows of the reeds. The river flowed with broken silver, and occasionally fish jumped up, and the splashing water droplets condensed into crystal necklaces in the air, and then fell back to the water. The evening wind swirled through the wild ginger bushes, startling two or three white butterflies. Their gossamer wings swept over the ripples, and the entire river was filled with fine starlight. The bamboo mat under the window was filled with the coolness of the well water. The little boy was curled up on the blue cloth pillow. The curve of his eyelashes reflected the tenderness of the entire summer night. The moonlight filtered in through the wooden lattice window, like a silver fish swimming across the tip of her sweating nose. He heard the wind swaying the shadow of the old locust tree and rustling; he heard the fireflies' lanterns hitting the cobwebs and swaying gently; he heard the butterflies parked on the windowsill, their wings opening and closing like flipping through a glowing fairy tale book.