AFTER THE FOURTH OF JULY

[photo: webshots.com]

As I was going through my files for ideas for today's post I ran across this old piece, written in 1984. The memory it references is of a Fourth of July in my childhood, so it seems appropriate to post it now, if a day late.

This piece is not what I would call successful writing. I've edited it many times, both expanding and contracting it, and finally left it as the flawed but deeply felt piece it is.

I am also hard pressed to categorize it. It's not a short-short story, nor is it really a prose poem. So I'll simply leave it as a childhood memory; maybe, a vignette.

NOW AND THEN

The evening is dreary. A car slips by spewing water across the sidewalks. Its headlights briefly splash twin asterisks of light on my rain wet window pane. How much they look like sparklers...

I can still smell the pungent odor of the last sparkler my father lit. My spirit jumps in sympathy with my towheaded brother's rabbit path around our father. "Please, please, please Daddy, one more, one more!" Phssst, fizzle and Daddy answers his plea. We all stand, momentarily content to be silent and together as the brief beauty burns down...

Long after the bright stars on the window have gone, a tender glow remains, cradled by the night.

* * * *

It just now struck me as I proofed this post that its nostalgia echos the card for today on my Tarot blog (link at bottom of this post), which is about The Six of Cups.

Resource: New Pages.Com, Online Literary Magazines, listings for online publications.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.