Wherein Shines the Light

A most resplendent day! Visited with my family toward mid afternoon and then with a chum for fireworks in the evening. But throughout, all that I could focus on was the color. These are the summer days that truly showcase a grove of trees. The unflinching blue and flood of warmth beckons you to play frisbee with cousins or read a book.

I am picking through East of Eden right now, and today I started on the Aeneid for a change of pace. That's one that will have you begging for a spear's shaft and shield, with salty sea brine stinging cracked lips, hungry for an encounter with kings and with gods. I'm a sucker for epic poetry.

Thus did my literature pallet variously indulge itself. I must confess that I resist the conviction that I am a bookworm, especially lately. I'm sure I've written this before, but I really am slow at it. I seem to process the words with languid, meandering thoughts that try to digest the whole picture with vivid images, but I miss much and I know it.

I haven't the chops for great insight into these writings, but I cannot help but savor the pictures. The mind is remarkable and fills in the deep shades of landscape and countenance with light to catch a glimpse of another world, but always with respect to this one. I don't imagine that I see these things in a profound way. I try to see them as the author paints them, but there is something about the literary mind that blows me away. It can take anything–the vivid narrative, the straightforward cookbook, the dry philosophical work, or the detailed biography–and create light and meaning in different hues. If it does not, there is no understanding the words.

Much like the bombs bursting in air earlier this evening, words themselves can ignite the imagination individually (like in word association games), but it is the explosion of color and light that gives each line of a great work its definition and meaning. In my estimation, a day's well-spent basking in such revelries.

Tonight, some low-life hoodlum launched a firework from the top of a hill onto a cluster of families below. I believe no one was hurt, but it was a dirty trick. Not two minutes passed and the young men from below had charged up the hill to seek revenge. My chum and I forsook the fireworks finale to go after the crook as well just to see what might happen. The rascal escaped, but we had a jolly good time with the chase.

In general, Jove's light colored the day. Praise to the Lord, the giver of all good things.