Thank you for your witness for justice, haijin. Congratulations to last week’s contributors:

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Onward!

The second week of June begins in “New York’s backyard.” Hot, sultry days trade places with cool, breezy ones. As we approach the heart of midsummer (by traditional calendar reckoning), it’s the right time to visit a summertime favorite: the firefly!

The Lampyridae are a family of insects in the beetleorder Coleoptera with over 2,000 described species. They are soft-bodied beetles that are commonly called fireflies or lightning bugs for their conspicuous use of bioluminescenceduring twilight to attract mates or prey. Fireflies produce a “cold light”, with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. This chemically produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red, with wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers.^[4] Some species such as the dimly glowing “blue ghost“ of the Eastern US are commonly thought to emit blue light (<490 nanometers), though this is a false perception of their truly green emission light due to the Purkinje effect.^[5]

I haven’t seen any yet, but I hope to, soon. How about you?

This week, write the #haikai poem of your choice (haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, haiga, renga, etc.) that alludes to the Firefly. Yes, you can even reference the sci-fi cult classic, too, if you like.

As always:

Here’s how the challenge works:

1. write the haikai poem of your choice.
2. post the link of your post to Mister Linky.
3. pingback by posting the link to the challenge on your site.
4. read and comment on other contributors’ posts.

Enjoy those tiny points of light, haijin!