Fireworks for great works!

Yes, they've started. After all, it's November, isn't it? Remember, remember the start of November, we say these days. So already the whines and crackles and thuds are impinging on our feet-up-by-the-fire time of an evening; the World War III impressions are screaming and flaring around our walls and windows and rooftops, and I can't pretend I'm over-excited about them at my age, after the first peep or two through the curtains. But I am excited about the firework poetry that children will be producing for me next week, in one school and another, for children's creativity never ceases to amaze me, and with such a vibrant and versatile theme as this, I know I'm in for a treat!

Fireworks offer up so much! Noises like no others, hues and blends to daydream over, shapes and swings that take your breath away: beauty, grace, splendour, audacity - a host of elements too multiple to list, and all too exceptional to ever quite describe, all reaching to the skies - making the gaping blackness their stage and playground! Their potential for creative reflection is infinite, with opportunities for imagery, mind-spinning; and whatever ideas I may prompt to fire the first sparks, those children, whoever they may be, will come up with more, marvellous more, and more and more!

Artists, musicians, dancers, and other creative thinkers will, I'm sure, be welcoming the fireworks similarly, and hooray for that! A bonanza of fireworks deserves a bonanza of celebrations. No wonder we all reach up to catch these extraordinary wonders in any and every way we can - except literally.

As for the muffled, merry crowds below, hobbling through the freezing mud and cheering into the icy sky - well, there's another pageant's-worth of potential to explore!