I Once Knew a Sparkledrop

It probably would never happen for someone else as it happened

for me, just then.

The car I was in was speeding at about seventy.

The night had already begun.

The view from the windows revealed mostly open fields.

Small cold-like clouds slept stubbornly only yards above the earth.

The black from the night part of night was not black yet,

but a mellowing deep, far off blue.

And then I, and I believe, I alone, saw this small child

run a few steps in a field, and stop

to throw a lighted sparkler into the blackening

blueness of the sky.

It glowered happily, and yet desparately;

and yet desparately,

for it would never return to the earth as the same

bright stick of joyousness as it is now.

The last gleeful sparkledrops painted the child's

attentive face with a friendly, but departing,

orange goodbye.

The image of the streak from the child's

run and throw now was taken in by the nearest mother cloud.

I remember it now-

still as if those seconds are still occurring as a full length movie.

The child smiling up, along with the sparkler;

the fading contrail evolving from white to a soft blue and slowly

melting into the air.

And then I could see no more.

A one act performance.

So fast. So very, very long.

Aug. '69