Red, White and Blue

Today, the sun wakes louder than usual,  

painting the sky with tired hands,  

its hues folding into firework silhouettes,  

sparklers waiting for dusk to ignite.  

Flags wave like ancient hymns unspoken,  

each stripe breathing a century of stories,  

knotted around campfires and kitchen sinks,  

stitched with hands blistered and resolute.  

In the park, a boy holds a sparkler,  

its flicker steady in his tiny grasp.  

His light traces the air, momentary magic,  

his shadows dancing on ancestral shoulders.  

Nearby, a woman lifts her worn voice,  

singing words that ripple like aged rivers.  

Two-hundred fifty years feels both endless,  

and slippery, curling like smoke near noon.  

How many sacrifices are pressed into the soil?  

How many dreams packed into weathered stars?  

We stand ankle-deep in legacy and questions,  

half-blind from history’s sunlight, still squinting ahead.  

Time blooms outward today—fireworks, flags, ash—  

our hands full of gratitude and wildfire suggestions.  

And beneath it all, the earth feels steady,  

older than our greatest hopes, yet quietly listening.