Born in earth’s first fire,
I’m primed to celebrate the Fourth
viewing great bursts over the Capitol Mall
honoring the nation’s birth,
the holy city on the hill,
shock and awe here and there,
the blood of Gettysburg, the Marne,
Iwo Jima and Khe Sahn,
Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan
(Thank you for your service,
and pardon our madness.)

My mind drifts from colorful explosions
to daring framers in Philadelphia,
to patriotic barbeque and beer
with Generals Washington and Lafayette
and Souza’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

As I approach my final celebrations,
I’m hurled forward on roman candles
to see the last fireworks of our flaming
earth, scorched by the sun, its finale
coming, dodging black holes with no one
to witness except some mountain crag
and maybe the last lonely roach.

How will it be for civilizations gone
with none to remember, archives
reduced to ash, cyber clouds still roaming
unvisited, theologians, their musings
and their kingdoms long forgotten.

Yet without our Fourth, the Tao by many names
will rush on in its cosmic mystery of not-knowing.
So I take refuge today in the wise ignorance of mystics
who trusted the ineffable without demanding dogmas,
and I confide in the silent spaces between fluttering
prayer flags over the quiet river and in the
purr of my cat, Max, who echoes start and finish.