Dad's Fireflies

Dad's Fireflies

Glowing bright red from a distance,
From within stress-filled, weary hands,
Like an S.O.S. calling for assistance,
Drifting upward in smokey,curled bands.

His spirits, like his job, were on swing shift,
Where union meetings became fewer and fewer.
Hopes sailed away like a used up cigarette,
Someone had carelessly thrown into the sewer.

Creator of countless tobacco-born fireflies,
That he snuffed out along with his dream,
Of retiring from the factory he did so despise,
Finding comfort in white wands of nicotine.

This man didn't cry on someone's shoulders,
He carried his burdens all alone and with pride.
Though the weight pressed on him like boulders,
He smoked away fears he kept bottled inside.

I can still see him there sitting all alone
His cigarette a small beacon in the dark.
In the home he struggled to pay on his own,
While disappointments had put out his spark.


for my father: Billy Gene Manhart

author's notes:
Poverty can become a mindset, a thing expected.
My father grew up in poverty, his father had been left
in an orphanage when his full-blood Native American
mother died along with several siblings. Poverty can
become generational, and our elders think they are
protecting us if they teach not to hope for too much.
But God instructs us otherwise. He expects us to see
our visions and the plans he has for us.

My dad was a meek and loving man, but he had a weak
spirit when it came to hope. I am not judging, he went
through very hard circumstances that adults today
would have a hard time dealing with. He was hard on himself,
and never attended church due to being a smoker. He thought he
was unworthy of salvation since he smoked.

Near the end of his life, he came to know the
full grace of Jesus Christ. He was ushered into heaven
with not one, but two angels at his side.
If only he saw himself as God saw him all along,
a precious soul loved by the merciful Creator, worthy of
all he could hope for.


Jeremiah 29:11-
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,
saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil,
to give you hope in your latter end.


Romans 5:1-5 -
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith into this
grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope
of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured
out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.