I write to savor, to remember, to study, to celebrate, to honor, and to cherish the journey through the human condition; I find that, short of a significant sigh, poetry is the most concise linguistic venue to harness distilled essences. A thirty-year contemplative journey captured in verse, "release fireflies" presents 22 color illustrations (original oil paintings by the author) interspersed with 67 poems (1982-2012) selected to offer the reader a hypnotic, intense, provocative, playful, pleasant, and meaningful journey through the eyes of a fellow explorer.