Haiku About Insects

Insects in haiku are mostly about light and wings, and the poems here are happiest when they change one into the other. Nancy Gauquier calls dragonflies STICKS WITH WINGS that dance in thin air, and then gives them a promotion: FLYING MAGIC WANDS. Michael Flanagan sends butterflies fluttering TO EARTH before a downpour, REBORN AS OAK LEAVES.

Fireflies

Linzi Garcia writes of FIREFLY IDEAS reflected in stunned pupils, then adds, THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS, an odd and delightful way to call a flash of light a thought. Michael Cooney finds courage in the same insect: THEY ARE NOT EASILY DISCOURAGED, the fireflies ON THIS RAINY NIGHT. Fireflies are a summer image in the older calendars, and both poems keep the glow and add something human.

Butterflies

Rachel Pond watches DAINTY WINGS FLUTTER and a VIBRANT BLUR OF ENERGY, then loses the butterfly in its own reverie. The poem is a small study in how a creature can be seen and not caught.

What the bug is for

An insect here turns into a wand, a lamp or a thought, and what the poet sees in it says more about the poet than about the bug.

An insect at a ceremony

Max Christian Hansen shares a moment at the edge of a ritual, OUR FIRST COMMUNION, when a dragonfly lands JUST BETWEEN OUR FEET. The insect lands in the gap between two people, and the gap becomes sacred.

Questions readers ask

Why are fireflies so common in haiku?

They arrive in summer, they are visible only at dusk, and they are tiny lights that appear and go out. That makes them the right size for a short poem.

More themes to read

AnimalsSummerFlowersFaith and SpiritIllness and the BodyAll themes

Last reviewed November 2026. Poems are the work of the poets credited and link to their pages in the original issues.