Rolf Jacobsen: "The Fireflies"

                         
                                    It was the evening with fireflies
                                    while we were waiting for the bus to Velletri
                                    that we saw two old people kissing
                                    under the plane tree. It was then
                                    you said, half to the air
                                    half to me:
                                    Whoever loves for years
                                    hasn't lived in vain.
                                    And it was then I caught sight of the first
                                    fireflies in the darkness, sparkling
                                    with flashes of light around your head.
                                    It was then.

"The Fireflies" by Rolf Jacobsen, from North in the World: Selected Poems of Rolf Jacobsen. Translated from the original Norwegian and edited by Roger Greenwald. © University of Chicago Press, 2002.

The Norwegian text can be found on page 298 of the digital text.

Art credit: "Fireflies by the Ropeswing, Lake of the Ozarks, MO," time-lapse photograph by Vincent Brady (originally color).