On a full-moon night
 
how pleasant to cross the bridge
 
without a lantern!

 
 
 

Unlighted lantern—
 
a luna moth shrinks its wings
 
to fit the darkness.

 
 
 

An old stone lantern
 
in the Japanese garden
 
fills with leaves, not light.

 
 
 

This old stone lantern
 
where a wren once built its nest
 
now holds only dust.

 
 
 

A crack in the glass
 
lets the lantern’s light leak out—
 
my journey lengthens.

Lantern

 
 

lighting my way home—
 
the same flickering lantern
 
that my dad once held

Nest

 
 
 

In the stone lantern
 
a young wren builds her first nest,
 
weaving hair with grass.

Shaking

 
 
 

shaking with fever
 
at the lantern festival
 
a brindle stray dog

Captured

 
 
 

the small boy’s lantern—
 
a hundred captured fireflies
 
glowing in a jar

Lantern

 
 
 

a solar lantern
 
placed upon the soldier’s grave
 
keeping watch by night