Deep in the backwoods of the Knoxville antique,
The black marble sky growls,
A panther,
To outsiders—those inside city limits—
The vanishing streetlights and,
Absence of neighbors,
May put them on extra alert but,
Here,
The panther’s like a friend
Watching over us

All day long me and my cousins,
Waited,
For the whispers of night to cover us,
In the last few hours before Independence Day drifted
Off for another year,
We broke out the rockets:
Nine-packs,
Missiles,
Roman Candles,
Sparklers,
Big and small,
The show was about to begin

Darting away,
From explosives right before launch,
Cracking up till
Our lungs hurt,
Bouncing on,
The backyard trampoline—
(I think I got punched in the eye that night
by accident)—
Playing with the border collie named Shadow,

We were frozen in a dream,
No person could break up this night,
Running without legs from parents’ rules,
And from mysterious police,
Hoping that Shadow wouldn’t go
Nuts,
Hurt someone

We were all—parents and cousins—
Drinking
In the elixir of freedom,
Caught in the secret
Between
The night and the countryside

There are clouds to my right,
massive and grey,
they inch forward across the sky.
Beneath them a stationary sea of stone and cement.
Unmoving waves that’d swallow me if I dared leave my perch.
Around me are noises.
Epic echoes that lend themselves to imaginings of war zones.
In the distance I see flashes
Brief man made stars of red, white, and blue.

The clouds move in.
A silent rolling mass.
The temporary stars try to touch them.
Their lives are too short.

Shining down on me,
The moon smiles,
She knows what it’s like to be temporary.
To need the strength of others to shine.
To be born on path you can’t escape.
I don’t.

The star makers don’t.
The builders and sailors don’t.
We might think we do.
We think we do.

I glance behind me.
To beat up a room that is only ever filled with lonely nights.
To an apartment part of a tradition of temporary dwellers,
With a floor more ocean than the roofs around me will ever be.
New stars reach higher.
I see one peek out from behind a cloud.

My flatmates join me.
We watch the fireworks together.

It's the Fourth
of July
independence day,
I take this time
a chance to say-

a BIG thank you
to those
who have
righteously
fought
in the name
of our freedom.


Ma Cherie © 2017

Robinson Jeffers (1887 – 1962)*


While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:  shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught–they say– God, when he walked on earth.

Firework explosions dance
across the midnight sky
sparklers swirl about
lighting up the air

The night is spent
in the back of your truck
with the blankets from my bed
and your body to keep me warm

Barbecues and fancy drinks
and atrocious amounts of food
everyone laughing and drinking and singing
and right by my side is you

The sparklers and the fireworks
of red and blue and white
cannot compare to the light
that shines from you and I

And in those moments
it seemed silly to me
that this holiday was spent alone
so many years before you came along