Barefoot Cobblestones

Everybody dances to the music of the traveling muses, the sways and barays of the homeless foes, belting through great fires, oil canvas, and nougat fireworks, stepping on barefoot cobblestones, leaping, hearing the church bells and drinking the sweet wine of Jesus Christ, reveling the glory of the smoky summer night, kicking cans like champions, wagering and losing, playing and winning, shouting across the endless island air, echoing off the stone and the ancient walls with modern soccer, yet practicing the customs that are god-knows-how-old and will always live in the hearts and minds and souls of those who have run in those streets and drunk the fireworks and watched the wine and licked the nougat and sang the lovely songs of the Virgin Mary and Saint Lawrence, placed the cannons in the barrels and dropped them off the side of the churches while the choruses swell and sway to the sounds of the gypsy instruments, the revolutions and explosions that glide across the sea spray of the familial ports and the creation of the whirls bangs buzzes fizzes of the great filibuster fuses that drive this wild-minded, watery celebration filled with toasts and wins and smoky fireworks and a spirit that carries the blood of the night.