RENASCENCE

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All I could see from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood;

I turned and looked the other way,

And saw three islands in a bay.

So with my eyes I traced the line

Of the horizon, thin and fine,

Straight around til I was come

Back to where I’d started from.

---------------------------------------------Millay

I think of this poem whenever I think of the night we watched the Fourth of July fireworks from the window of the top floor of a hotel.  

We’ve already mentioned to each that other Fourth that stands out, even though it was just us two. We were in Georgia to visit the children, and since the one tiny Granddaughter had an early bedtime, and they were packing for Disney World on the morrow, we went back early to our hotel.

We went to our room out of that bright hot day, stripped into just our underwear, and stood in the cool at our top-floor, almost-shoulder-high window, looking down at the crowds parading past in that Georgia heat---trundling baby strollers, wheeled coolers, little red wagons full of children/lawn chairs/beer.

And as the twilight fell, we could look down and just to our right, and see the behind-the-scenes magic of fireworks being shot from the top of a parking garage just below, flying skyward and bursting over the river that flowed almost beneath our feet.    It was like seeing all the magical displays of OZ, and being privy to the behind-the-curtain prestidigitations of such a splendid event, as well.

A scan of the horizon showed nine separate fireworks displays, going off inch-high all at once in every town within sight-range, with their own gatherings of  warm, holidaying crowds fresh from the picnic tables and smoky grills of backyard burgers, gathered in their own home areas for the same enchantments, while we munched drippy, salty boiled peanuts and drank icy Co-Cola in that cool, far-removed room.

No travel agent could have arranged the "Southern experience" better.

And A Happy, Safe Fourth to Everyone!!