I wrote this poem first in 2004
and posted it again in 2019.
It is more relevant than ever today in 2020.
Pray for PEACE!!
Fireworks Aficionado
by Pat Hanson
We’re fireworks aficionados
My significant equal and I
‘saw the millennium spectacle in 1999
with half a million on Washington, DC’s mall
Marked the 4th of 2000
‘cross the river from Manhattan Island
We revel in pop, crack, pound-your-heart outbursts
scintillating luminosity
Spiraling, star-trek beaming
dripping downward
melting into the oceans’ edge.
this time in San Diego harbor
raining stardust ash on a ga-zillion dollar aircraft carrier
named aptly for a dead president
an actor turned commander in chief
his wife Nancy of ‘just say no’ fame
they chose this metropolis of military seamen and fighting ships
year round sunshine
over fog and Fort Washington further north
to call home-base for this war machine
Why is it we wonder so?
Breathe collective sighs of awe
Simultaneously shout at the shock
Reel from the gun bursts
the cannon shots
knowing inside
we are safe
that this is pretend gun violence?
For PEACE.
No more killing,
We want a world where we all remember
with kindness all peoples
All places …
Because there’s only one of us here.
