Pyrotechnics

Pyrotechnics

The heavens effervesced with smoke and noise

as spiders, peonies, and palms enthralled

the mobs of men and women, girls and boys,

but shocked the foxes, rabbits, deer, and mauled

the air like ack-ack fire. It spooked the bats

while coons abandoned kits and field mice crawled

down burrows. Even butterflies and gnats

behaved as if huge bolides overhead

were quaking space-time. Humans have their spats,

but this seemed more like war. Some birds dropped dead,

some lost their hearing; dogs were hit by cars

or disappeared, while other creatures bled,

pulled through and lived, disfigured, etched with scars

to face anew this fête beneath the stars.

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(Appeared in The New Verse News)