On one Fourth of July I woke up and thought that I was hearing the start of World War III.
It wasn't.
It was just a fusillade of fireworks:
Popping! Hissing! Fizzles!
My lust for fireworks and the anticipation to ignite them arrived long before my puberty and confused adolescence.
In June I began looking for the first sentinels of July Fourth:
FIREWORKS STANDS.
As good as waiting for Christmas and Easter.
There must be something innate in humans to want to explode “things”.
To hear loud noises.
Smoke and sulfur don’t bother us that much.
Unless it's the Devil.
***
Reverie
The beautiful face of a child
Looked across the open world
And saw the sky and ocean turn upside down.
All the myriad stars fell into the hair
Of the beautiful child
And he burned like a sun.
And on another intelligent planet
The face of another beautiful child
Smiled as he saw in the dark heavens
A huge brilliant explosion
Of ten billion stars
Disappearing.
It was the Fourth of July.
Looked across the open world
And saw the sky and ocean turn upside down.
All the myriad stars fell into the hair
Of the beautiful child
And he burned like a sun.
And on another intelligent planet
The face of another beautiful child
Smiled as he saw in the dark heavens
A huge brilliant explosion
Of ten billion stars
Disappearing.
It was the Fourth of July.
By M.L. Squier
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