' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' A Word Too Far? (For Scarlett)

The sparkler amazed the dark with the beauty of itself. The child held it with all the wonder it could muster. The dark seemed scared of it. There were no words to describe how it lit up our little minds. “FULGENT! ” her father proclaimed as if he had been reading my mind. “FULGENT! ” I said (as if I had misheard) . “You know... bright...shinning...radiant! ” He carefully constructed his trap of words to capture the experience. I hadn’t known. I wished I didn’t know now. I had loved it in a wordless way. I looked at the dictionary bobbing in his throat pretending to be an Adam’s apple secretly hating him for naming it. The child sensibly not letting it past the whorl of her ear continued to look at it (like I) beyond words and only in wonder.