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2002-07-07
Peter Minuit
B. 1580 Wessel, Germany / D. 1638 At Sea
Drowned
Sick cat at the vet, sick and dehydrated�near-casualty of the recent heat wave in this part of Pyromerica; the one conceived in gunpowder and bright beads which reflected blue skies, puzzled painted faces, trees
One man, one block, one town (say, Bayville) on Long Island Sound�$40 thousand worth of fireworks, professional-grade, to set off at the beach, amid bonfires, on Fourth of July. Multiply him by hundreds, for miles in either direction, all competing for size, noise, and length of show; then add dozens of town displays, geysering silent, lichen-tiny, along a north-westward arc to distant Darien; then add a busy ground-level fabric of intimacies with tikki-lights, Roman candles, firecrackers and sparklers. A panorama extinguished as a violet sky-spanner sizzles and booms overhead; the waves whiten to plaster.
The back yard, scorched pale by the heat wave. For its wildlife�squirrels, birds, also pigeons�I've put a Tupperware pool under the trees. The other day I remembered that mini-serving of Evian in the ice box�took it out, broke the seal, poured it in. (C'est Park Slope!) Then I brought the bottle back indoors and threw it in the garbage. First time I'd done that in years but the city's just stopped recycling plastic�glass too for that matter.
More for the trash barges, and the more accommodating southern states�watch for the fleets from a shoreline near you while there's still novelty: discarded slabs of New York City, mica-sided with empty plastic water bottles; in sea-light seemingly aglow.