Looking for Lanterns

Dickinson once said

she was out with a lantern

looking for herself,

but I am out with myself

looking for lanterns.

Like a moth, I fly,

metamorphosized,

beating battered wings,

searching for the light

that lives in poetry.

Beacons of light

in darkened woods,

where mystics go

to lose themselves

and become myth.

A poem here,

a story there,

a light along

the path

less traveled.

A waymarker

letting me know

that someone else

has traversed here

and made it out alive.

Maybe one day

I will transform again

from moth to flame

and add another lantern

to the path.