Fireworks in Hainan
There wasn’t much to it,
just a spasm of chemical combustion
on a beachfront, energy of fire turned
to the frequency of red and white,
whatever our eyes will recognize
against the ocean’s black.
Someone
was responsible, even if
there wasn’t much to it, so I leaned
over a guardrail to watch
three Chinese tourists, especially the oldest,
a woman with trimmed hair who shook her hands
to reject the fire, laughing with fear that the energy
might lift her to unsafe heights.
She giggled the hardest
when it was over, as if nothing much was better
in this entire world than this beach in this tourist zone
on this island where a person could let some sand
sift between their toes. Here’s another box, someone
shouted from above, passing it down. The woman
shook her hands again
but her daughter and a man
took the package and turned it around, flipping it
with pleasure, wanting a little piece of all us to be sent
skyward as smithereens.
I watched a bit longer
until I was sure silence would follow,
and then moved on
aware for a moment,
maybe the length of a flash of light,
of how wrong I was:
There is a lot
to life’s simple delights.
"There is a lot
to life’s simple delights."
I really like this line. So simple & true!
Your poem felt like reading a firework.