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Fireflies and Fire Works
Saturday, July 03, 2004It starts off like the sound the love child of a hammer and a roll of thunder, unmistakable. I know better than to go outside...to see the show there's only one seat in the house, in the bedroom I used to sleep in. The window is low, there is a trunk in front of it on one side and a pine tree on the other and you have to lay across the trunk and tilt your head just so your line of sight is below a branch...and then you'll see it. Fireworks. You won't see all of them. Only the highest, only the best...but you hear them all, see a flash of gold light on the horizon. If you wait, you'll see them, in the hot country night with no other houses, no man made sounds...only the sounds of insects and the deer in the valley. You can believe many things. You can believe the show is just for you. The fireflies are thick, and against the dark wall of the hillside, the lighter gray of the sky above the back drop for the fireworks, you can believe the fireflies are sparks. Perhaps some wizards are fighting and the reds and golds and silvers and greens and occasional fushas are their spells, woven into the air. Perhaps it is dragon flare. Or the feathers of a pheonix new risen. It doesn't matter. These few stolen fireworks are earned and all the more special...your stomach hurts from leaning on the edge of the trunk, your neck hurts, your eyes lose focus while waiting for something to happen. Finally the banging increases, pounding one after another, and silence falls abruptly. You count the seconds in your head. Finally you straighten up, and you walk away. I know what fireworks are made of. Paper, fuse, some kind of mineral, some gunpowder. I suppose people call it science. But I call it magic. Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:55 PM 0 comments |