At midnight, fireworks in the plaza. No photographs—you know what fireworks are like. Tawdry, staggering, irresistible, like human love. Live stars fall on twenty thousand people massed in a darkened square. Some cry out, get burned, applaud. No star falls on me, although I try to position myself. Will you say you cannot make out my face in the dark? you heartless creature.
At the end of the fireworks we burn down the cathedral, as is traditional. So dazed with light and sulfur by now, there is no question it is the appropriate finale. Tomorrow morning, when we try to celebrate Saint James’s solemn Mass amid the charred ruins, we will think again. But fireworks are always now, aren’t they? like human love. ¡Corazón arriba!When is a pilgrim like the middle of the night? When he burns.
(via lifeinpoetry)