Early May evening in Waxhaw

A cool, moonless night with fireflies–"lightening bugs" here in the Confederacy. Soon there will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of them in the meadow. Tonight, as best I can determine, there are just three. But they are a game trio, bright and diligent, playing out their flash dance against the distant silhouette of the trees. As one comes close the dog growls low and uncertainly as if he senses an intruder on our evening but cannot be sure.

I watch Venus fall ever so slowly from the sky. It occurs to me that Venus does not fall at all nor for that matter does the sun set. The sun and Venus are fixed in the firmament. It is the Earth that creates their motion as it spins upward against sun and star producing an apparent descent toward the horizon.

                 But who am I to bother about such trivia.

I sip my Amaretto, its almond fragrance amplified by the warmth my fingers press through the glass. I am content, free from the cares of the day, for the moment at peace with the world of politics. My cancer is sleeping. In the profoundly ironic dying words of The Godfather (in the book, not the movie), "Life is so beautiful."

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