Fireworks Suddenly July 21, 2008
Posted by The Typist in cryptical envelopment, Dancing Bear, poem, Poetry, Toulouse Street.Tags: beach combers, destin, fireworks, flashlight people, Florida
trackback
They come out at night, the flashlight people
combing the tide line, lights swinging wildly
like some Shakespeare clown watch with a bottle.
What do they think to find out in the night
that would not wash up in the glare of day?
Fireworks suddenly burst over the sand
with a bang whoosh snap pop hiss of colors,
bursting metallic blossoms in the dark,
leaving a column of smoke, hesitant
then rushing past us like a crowd of ghosts.
A whale, my son turns and says as sudden
as the fireworks. What, I ask? A whale,
that’s what might wash up. Let’s go down and look.
Blink: one flock of lights vanish. Down there some
thing large and dark sings a watery blues.
Cross posted from Poems Before Breakfast. The flashlight people in Destin, Florida fascinate me. I don’t recall them from my trips here as a child, or on the beach in Rehoboth, Delaware.
Pardon me if I’m brief. I have to run out this morning and replace the landlady’s blender.
You really have a unique, kinetic voice. I just love this; I missed going/seeing fireworks this past 4th, but I feel like I’ve seen some spectacular eye-opening wow ones after reading this. Thank you and I thank you!
LikeLike
They’re probably looking for a “jubilee,” which we now know has to do with oxygen depletion in the gulf, caused by all that bad ag runoff that comes down the Mississippi.
Lost your email address with the meltdown of my hard drive. And am working my fanny off day and night at the very big media company whose name I can’t write here. Thought of you today when I looked out the office window to the Festival of Sail, with about 30 tall ships sailing in a parade on the SF waterfront. I know what a sailor you are and that you’d have loved every minute. Do stay in touch.
LikeLike
Nope, not a jubilee: just the latest thing in shelling. I get up pretty early no matter how late I stay up, and I don’t see lot of people out at dawn combing the beach the way they did when I was a child.
LikeLike