Ships stay for a while, and go back on their lanes,
But return once again, even through the worst weather...
Half a year won't pass, before I will come again,
Again to leave for half a year after a brief time together.

Everyone returns, except for the best friends,
Except for the most beloved and loyal of women,
Except for the most needed, all return in the end...
I don't believe in fate, I don't believe in fate, and in myself I believe even less.

But I'd like to believe that this isn't all true,
That the fashion for ship-burning will soon end here.
With friends and with works, I will come back to you,
And of course I will sing, in less than half a year.
With friends and with dreams, I will come back to you,
And of course I will sing, in less than half a year.
night takes black paper
...
tells to the stars
"make your own constellations"
...
"But
one display
leave up to me!"

THEN FIREWORKS BURST

Children exclaim
"More! More! More of the same!"


Anyone recognize the poem I am misremembering? I read it in a discarded elementary-school reading textbook many years ago (between 1994 and 1999, I believe, judging by the apartment I recall reading it in), which book got thrown out during a move --- and the poem haunts me whenever I see fireworks, and afterwards too. Google has not been its usual wonderful poem-hunting self for this one; I may be misremembering some of the words, but I am pretty certain about those phrases, and I've tried all kinds of search methods without success: the poem is not on the Internet. So I resort to a public appeal whether someone else has read it in some other anthology and can find it for me. I've got English teachers and poetry professors and librarians in training and plain trivia geeks reading this blog at times; somebody help a fireworks-loving, fireworks-ecstatic gal out?
.

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