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WilliamPitt

(58,179 posts) Sat Jul 4, 2015, 10:21 AM Jul 2015

When the Night Erupts in Brilliance

(Photo: William Rivers Pitt)

When the Night Erupts in Brilliance
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Saturday 04 July 2015

There is a long stretch of dirt road in a corner of southwest New Hampshire that seems to be made of different time. Should you happen down its shaded way this time of year, you'll encounter an odd sign on a warped plywood board leaning against an ancient oak tree. "BUKOWSKI'S NORTH," it reads, an homage to the downtown Boston bar my friends and I shared while whittling our nights away over strong beers and stronger fellowship.

Every year, for years, I dust the winter off the face of that old sign and lean it against the tree, braced by a rock older than God. That sign reminds my visiting friends to slow down, to stop, and park either in the small cut-out or along the road itself. There is a driveway, but it is more of an air pocket than an entrance, a steep dive down to a small log cabin that sits on a lake. The pure blue beauty of the place - the porch, the ripples on the water, the wind, the scent of the trees and the quiet thunder within the soul evoked by the deep green all around - has a wonderful way of ... well, of doing what it does.

(snip)

John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail regarding this day wrote, "I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance." We have yet to be delivered, and we have such a long way to go. Yet all is not darkness, and reaching for the light is an effort that yields its own rewards. That road, such as it is, never ends.

In the meantime, I will be at my daughter's great-grandfather's cabin in the warm company of old friends this weekend. There's a guy on the other side of the lake with one of those floating docks that is anchored 30 feet out in the water. He fancies himself a fireworks expert, and has repeatedly proved it year after year, and every Fourth he stacks that dock with vivid pyrotechnics ... and then, just as the sun fades and the stars appear, he lights the fuse, and the night and the surface of the lake erupt in brilliance.

I can't wait to see what he has in store this year. Happy Fourth of July, all. Let freedom ring.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31712-when-the-night-erupts-in-brilliance