Fireworks

What can we say about a month like this month? A weekend like the weekend just past which held not just spectacle and an email from someone I had not seen since I was 11, but a birthday. At the party yesterday a piñata took a real beating and there was pizza, and a cake that looked like a sleeping badger, and sparklers from across the border in New Hampshire, the famous Live Free or Die state  where you can still go helmetless on your big old motorbike if you’re that crazy.I’m the one who brought the sparklers, which anyone can get right in any supermarket there in the Granite State. “Look! Sparklers! They’re illegal in Massachusetts!” I said to the birthday boy’s older brother and his eyes widened. “WHoooa!" he yelled. "Hey everybody, we have sparklers!" Then…. “What’s ‘illegal’?We got a lecture on that topic from a firefighter-guest and when we did finally light them it was under conditions you could only describe as extremely controlled. We watched a few fizz down to their wicks in honor of a matchless May day. The sun went all golden and a little boy blew out his candles as his big brother kissed him and who knows but what the two of them will still be embracing each other right on into the 22nd century?