So yesterday was a holiday, and as you can see, I took that quite literally. I love those days when the pj's don't come off until noon! We saw fireworks on Saturday, which was fortuitous since they were rained out last night.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about fireworks since the weekend, in large part because the display we saw was once of the nicest I've seen in a while. So let's write about fireworks, the ones in the sky or the ones in your heart. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Until I see you back here, here's a short poem.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about fireworks since the weekend, in large part because the display we saw was once of the nicest I've seen in a while. So let's write about fireworks, the ones in the sky or the ones in your heart. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Until I see you back here, here's a short poem.
Starburst
colors galore
dancing before the sky
launched heavenward to fall again
KABOOM!
colors galore
dancing before the sky
launched heavenward to fall again
KABOOM!
I've got nothing here!
ReplyDeleteJane
I wrote this a long time ago and called it "Tenth Year Paradelle," but it's neither a paradelle nor a villanelle. On the occasion of my TWENTIETH anniversary, let's rename it:
ReplyDeleteTenth Year Villadelle
We leaned into the hill as the night exploded toward us.
The grass grew high and green and thick.
Into the thick the high the hill exploded as grass
Night leaned toward green and we and us grew
Thunder worked a fire in the star-shattered air.
The noise engulfed the breathing throng.
Breathing athunder the star-throng engulfed
The noise shattered the fire worked in air
Only you and I, fingers touching, stood alight,
A current holding us to the ground.
Fingers alight you the only ground I stood
A current touching holding us to and—
Hm.
Fireworks
ReplyDeleteThe sky has always wanted to do this,
to throw itself burning
across the ponderous face of night,
to shatter lightning, to splinter sunlight.
--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
Finally, a little something:
ReplyDeleteFIREWORKS
Fire works this way,
a spark, a sparkle,
then the dark unfolds
like a Chinese box,
opening little by little
to the light.
©2011 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved
Debby-Downer has her claws in me. I hope she lets go soon.
ReplyDeleteJuly 4, 2011
Music begins. A pop! Together
chins and eyes travel heavenward.
Oooo...Boom! Pfft, pfft, pfft. Ahhh...
All aglow with patriotism Americans
willing to Oooo and Ah in unison over
sparkling things, fleeting and out of
reach, refuse to speak to one another of
the threats to our terrestrial existence,
namely, our own power and greed.
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved
Last year I wrote a more uplifting one.
Heidi -- that's a gorgeous poem! Mine's in blank verse.
ReplyDeleteFarmers’ Fireworks Display
By Steven Withrow
We stall the car and climb the roadside hillock
To the field, as the bugs hum down for our blood,
And at the second flash—the first entrapped us
With its bright and bursting spontaneity—
You coo and ooh as though you’ve seen a dragon
Or an arrow fletched with phoenix-feathers falling
In a slowly effervescing arc of colors—
Redwhitebluegreengold—before concussing
Like a thunderclap from Odin’s son.
Or maybe your imagination’s twined
To a world less mythological than mine,
And sky to you, although it gleams with flame,
Is merely airy molecules at play
With dusk’s near-summer-solstice looming light.
©2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved
The Pyrotechnician
ReplyDeleteIt’s his life
his art
this pouring of powders
this mixing and fixing
of potassium perchlorate
sodium benzoate
all magicked into packages
shot into the sky.
A whole year
he works for this night
on placement and pacing
orchestrating
for maximum amazement
the dazzle and flash
and thundering crash
of color colliding
with sound.
For twenty minutes
the sky is his canvas
a backdrop for pinwheels
for flashfalls and gerbs
all imprinting his vision
of fusion and fission
on the memories of those
who watch his dream burn.
~~Barbara J. Turner
Hope
ReplyDeleteLate one night
fourth of July
a firefly stared
at a starburst sky.
As fireworks
blossomed
I heard her sigh -
I can do it if I try.
© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
These are all so interesting! I especially liked the inside view of the pyrotechnician. I can so picture an anthology on this most common of shared experiences...
ReplyDeleteFIREWORKS
ReplyDeleteChinese New Year
Fourth of July
Man made lightning
Sparkles our sky.
(c) Charles Waters 2011