Independence Day - Ken Weisner

[Larry Robinson]

Independence Day

How you owls hold your ground at the tops of the redwoods while fireworks blast
 just a street away, the mortars and the bottle rockets. It doesn't faze your gaze
 over the fresh-mown meadow rustling with moonlight. 

Bill Sadler, vet from a few doors down, what it takes for him to get through this
 night, cocooned in headphones, passed out on the basement couch, his dogs
 restless. How powerful the hiss, concussion, the refrains.

Your hearing? Ten times as good as a human's yet holding your position in the
 tree crowns. Then five huge cannons—each followed by a hissing ten-times-
higher-than-a-tree-tall chrysanthemum, spray-shower of blood and bubble-gum, 
yellow-gold and lucky green. All above the street but flickering here like a black-
light Saigon disco ball, so bright I can see illuminations of you in movie frame
 pulses. 

But you’ve had enough. 

Your wings strobe-unfold. In each of five lit frames, you take a flight deeper into 
the woods. Turns out you weren’t immune to the pounding strafe of false day.

A little sad to see you go—yet thrilling—to watch you rise—in that surreal light—
like watching statuary come to life: the gargoyle flies from the cathedral.

I want to tell you my feelings, share my ideas on military spending. The ones 
causing war, how often are they the ones most devastated? By losing a family, a 
village? A wife, a child?

Small comfort: you'll outlast us. You’ll be back hunting voles and field mice before 
the children are tucked in their beds, before the firecracker casings are damp with 
dew. 



- Ken Weisner