Fireworks

you dreamed without beginning–
breath, stars, flowers
of light

you were happy to hold
hands with what was
not there

you closed your eyes and sang
from the inside, way down,
like flying,

listening to your heart beating,
rearranging the pattern
into constellations

you released what you had not
seen—you gave it away
without thinking

you dreamed with your arms open
and became entirely unafraid–
spilled over

The Kick About prompt this week referenced Flowers of Fire, late 1800s Japanese fireworks catalogues. There were pages and pages of not only beautiful abstract images, but plants, animals, people, and objects. It made me think that the artists who created these light shows were trying to project their dreams into the sky.

Visions of wishes and magical things.

As usual, the collage turned out very differently than I imagined it, but I think it captures the spirit of what I intended to do.

For dVerse, OLN, hosted by Sanaa.

32 thoughts on “Fireworks”

  2. “You closed your eyes and sang, from the inside, way down, like flying. A very rich collage feast, and mysterious stanzas, fueled by firecrackers and cotton candy.

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    1. Thanks David as always for your kind words. Collage is still considered a lesser art, but if you look closely, you’ll find that many well-known painters have indulged in it, at least from the 20th century on.

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  7. I loved your approach to this prompt, Kerfe – the idea that those illustrations were dreams of more idealised things being projected into the sky by the imagination, as much by gunpowder! Ooh Aah.

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  8. What a glorious vision–artists dreaming into existence. I love this idea, and what you made of it in verse and art. Beautiful!
    But when I began reading, I imagined someone with dementia, lost but happy in a dream world.

    “you were happy to hold
    hands with what was
    not there”

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    1. Thanks Merril. I’ve had several discussions with people about dementia lately, and I think it’s impossible to know what world they are actually inhabiting, but that would be a good one. One point we also touched on was how to define what was real. Can we even ever know that?

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      1. I thought about that, too, with my mom. When she was in the nursing home, she was sure my dad was there, too. And I thought, well, maybe his spirit was, and if not, at least the thought was bringing her comfort.

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  9. There’s a dreamlike feel here, where the conscious mind shuts down and we roam free through images, thoughts and memories. The tercets work perfectly to give both a sense of individual captures, and continuity. Lots of good lines to quote, but I especially liked “you released what you had not
    seen—you gave it away/without thinking..”

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