Twenty-six species of the insect family Lampyridae, commonly known as fireflies, have been identified in the foothills of Appalachian Ohio. For a brief moment at the very end of their lives, nineteen of these species communicate with silent bioluminescent displays whose flash patterns and colours vary precisely with habitat, season and time of night. Since 2019 Samuel James has recorded these dialects of light with long exposures, following one luminous facet of life in the temperate deciduous forests of southern Ohio as it changes through the seasons above eroded mountains and the layered sediments of ancient seas.