SkyFlowers

I want to catch you
shower of gold
this is the end of the rainbow broadcast
across the evening sky
shakes my heart
Boom. Boom. Crack.
shakes my bones
fingers of light to caress this aching soul
More! More!
Please never let this end
So much smoke the aftermath.
Wherewithal does this wind us blow?
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Fill this union with soot
but take away the memories.

I spent the Fourth of July with my friends Kellen and Dani on Kellen's grandparent's boat out on Lake Union. It's really the first time I've done the whole fireworks thing without my family. I grew up going to our family cabin on Hood Canal. That's long sold now, so the last few years have been much quieter celebrations of Independence Day, that is of course if we do anything at all.

I have to say there's something to be said for experiencing the Fourth on a boat. Being able to feel every explosion as the fireworks light up the sky was something I highly recommend… unless you have heart problems or an otherwise sensitive constitution. If you're going to be on the boat all day before the fireworks start though, I strongly recommend bringing not only copious amounts of food/drink, but also things to keep yourself entertained.

Anyways, during the light show I felt rather poetic and since I didn't have my usual notebook handy, so I pulled out my phone and texted the above poem in chunks to my email. It's not the most eloquent way to write a poem, I know, but it got the ideas out of my head and into a more concrete medium than anything else available.

I realized only after I had Dani read it that it kind of sounds like a love poem, which I suppose I shouldn't ruin that element of it by admitting that it's not, but… it's not a love poem, or it wasn't meant as such when I first wrote it. I may keep this and adapt and expand what I have into something more once I have someone in mind to be writing about.