Day 18 - "We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."

Happy Independence Day everyone!

As some of you might know, the fourth of July is my favorite holiday, bar none. I don't know exactly why, though I have some reason to believe it has to do with warm weather, charcoal-grilled picnic food, swimming, and, probably more than anything else, beautiful explosions of light to top it all off at the end of the day. These are what I associate with this holiday - a day off to enjoy the summer for what it truly is: family, friends, and a good time.

This year things have changed, and not so much for the better I'm afraid. It will not be the same fourth of July that it has been for years and years on end. Still, I have at least 22 or 23 happy memories of this day throughout my life and the one thing that still gets to me, more than anything else, are those fireworks. They never seem to fade or mean anything less to me - they are forever, and the feeling never changes. When I see them pop and glow in the summer night sky I am instantly four years old again. They are simply beautiful, and nothing can take that away for some reason - no pain, no sadness, no regret or loss that I am experiencing. That is why they are special to me, and in honor of that feeling I wrote this poem. The title is a direct quote from Rumi, a 13th-century Muslim poet - he is one of my favorites and I have always loved his views on the transformation of things and the experiences and vital processes of our lives. The quote itself actually seemed almost too appropriate for the subject matter - one wonders if Rumi was looking at a display of fireworks himself when he composed that line in his mind so many centuries ago?

I wish you all a wonderfully happy and colorful fourth of July this year. May it build upon your many other priceless memories of this most perfect of holidays. :)


“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”


Instinctively

the chest is clutched by the hand

and joyfully seized by memories of grinning childhood wonder.

The bursts of multicolored lights in the great divide

drive away all thoughts;
all words;
all of all that is, or was, or will be;

everything;
everything except the biding dark above.

We gaze up at the nothingness
in tender expectation,

and in those sudden, glorious, booming illuminations

the young one inside of us clutches at our chest with excitement.

And yet we cannot tear our eyes away
to consider what this means,

for our eyes have become the unyielding conductors of our soul.

And through the tiny keyholes in each of those doors

it crouches and stares intently, and smiles, instinctively,

in sweet, sublime puerility,

like nothing else ever was

or mattered

as much as this

skyful of enchanting fulminations.


Perhaps nothing does, or ever has, or ever will.


- Joshua Clarke