The Elements of Providence

The numbers back him up. An economic impact study of WaterFire in 2004 shows that it attracted at least 1.1 million visitors to Providence. More than half came from out of state, and most of these travelers cited WaterFire as the reason for their visit. The study estimated WaterFire's direct economic impact for the year at $33.2 million. "We were surprised by how big the numbers were," says Donald Keinz of Acadia Consulting Group, which conducted the study. "They make WaterFire a bigger draw than the Newport Folk Festival or the Newport Jazz Festival, a bigger draw than anything in the state except Newport itself."

With its resonance of both baptism and funeral Mass, WaterFire turns the process of urban redevelopment into something nearly sacred. "Remember, 60 percent of this state is Catholic," says Burke, whose full name is Robert Ignatius Loyola Burke. "We have this great outdoor sacrament. The ritual, the reverence, the holiness, the smoke like incense, the chants -- all that resonates with Rhode Island Catholics in particular."

Before we part ways, I ask Burke if he thinks of a particular place as the heart of WaterFire. He replies, "I love to stand on what is now the Crawford Street Bridge, the new one," a graceful, modest span all the way at the downstream end of WaterFire, closest to Pot Au Feu. "One, it has the prettiest view, because the elevated braziers make a spectacular reflection in the water." The last 15 braziers on that end do not float on the river; rather, they are mounted directly on the granite pediments of the old, Guinness-worthy Crawford Street Bridge, and rise a few feet above the water, all that remains of the decking that covered the river. "Two, symbolically, that's the spot. That's where the old bridge was, so that's where the city was reborn. And, three, if you turn and face south on the bridge, you get the smell of the bay, 25 miles away, from Newport. There's always a breeze there. That's the spot where the wind whips up the bay, and if you're a real Rhode Islander you can breathe in the ocean air and feel your roots."

I walk to the new bridge to see for myself. There's a little outward bulge in the middle of the downstream side that seems to enjoy its own permanent breeze bearing a taste of sea air. I stand there, savoring it, admiring the reflection in the water of the raised braziers. My subjective map of WaterFire keeps changing. I had thought of the circular basin at the upstream end as its center; or, if not the basin, then the point in the middle where the three rivers meet. But no, it turns out that WaterFire's secret center could be here, at the downstream end, which I had thought of as the place where the event peters out.

Of course, the next resonant spot I find may supplant these others. WaterFire's elements encourage you to conjure with them, to keep recombining them as you make the artwork your own. Barnaby Evans says that you don't need to know anything about Providence to come up with an authoritative understanding of his creation. Bob Burke says that only a true Rhode Islander who knows the lore of Providence can fully understand it. WaterFire leaves room for both to be right.

WALKING BACK UPSTREAM, I find that the riverfront has become a vast open-air love zone. It's almost 10 p.m.; the fires burn hot and bright in the lovely dark. The crowd appears to consist mostly of couples now, thousands of them, young and old and in between, leaning together as they stroll, hunkering down by the water in jumbled pairs.

Evans has the greater community in mind when he says that he intends to bring people together, but his creation practically yanks couples into a clinch, too. The forgiving mysterioso lighting, mood music, pleasing smells in the air and warm feelings pervading the crowd all frame your woo-object to best advantage. You feel the city around you come alive with possibility, elevated from the normal, and the same thing happens to the two of you. The moon, hanging between office buildings, can turn even the most prosaic steel-and-glass cubicle-hive into a romantic tower on a stage set for love. There are just enough things to do and material to work with to shape the evening into a series of quiet pleasures without distracting you from each other. Let's go up on that bridge and see what it looks like from there. Let's walk back down the river and stop for a drink. Let's sit by the water and watch the boats. Let's just listen. Let's . . .

I'M ON MY WAY TO WORK A SHIFT ON A WOOD-TENDING BOAT, something I've wanted to do ever since I attended my first lighting. I've worn black and brought gloves, as instructed. A supervisor at the dock speaks into her headset, and a few minutes later a boat swings in to pick me up.

Once aboard, I join a crew of six whose job it is to keep the fires stoked. The boat has run low on wood -- about five cords of salvaged pine and cedar is burned per hour -- so we stop to resupply at one of the half-dozen bridges that span the river along WaterFire's length. Snugged under the bridge, we reach up beneath its arches to grab logs stacked there, toss them behind us into the boat, then make off down the river to continue our rounds.

The job has a rhythm to it, part of the larger rhythm of WaterFire. You grab a log with each hand from the pile in the boat, then, ranged along the gunwale with other volunteers, you take your turn to place your logs into a brazier as the captain maneuvers the boat by it. Up close, the fires toast your face, and it takes a few attempts to get the hang of timing the boat's coasting approach and keeping stray embers from singeing your hair or eyebrows as you dump in the wood. It's all done without sudden movements or loud talk, with a stately smoothness encouraged by Evans as part of WaterFire's aesthetic. There's something at once restful and inspiring, like meditation, about the routine: being out on the water, doing your job among others, holding the logs ready as you pull up to the brazier, waiting your turn, reaching into the heat and light to put them in, feeling the fire rise up with new force as the boat pulls away and moves to the next one.

Why have I grown so attached to WaterFire? Not just because it satisfies the urge

to engage intimately with a place, and not just because of my own Lovecraft-inspired yen for Providence in particular. Not just because attending WaterFire is the opposite of locking yourself in the house, watching TV and growing ever more fearful of public life and space. And not just because the combination of water, fire and music operates on some basic mammalian pleasure center that doesn't get enough stimulation from the routines of city living.

Those reasons all matter, but I come back for this one: As I work my shift on the boat, and as I walk along or sit by the river, I am seized by a heightened sense of city-ness -- of a great crush of humanity, the living as well as the ghosts of the dead, all gathered in one place by the water, their desires and labors and cares shaped by Providence and shaping it in turn. The upwelling of feeling resonates in the buildings, the bridges, the curve of the river, the faces of the people gazing at the fires. I see that they feel it, too. Everything else that isn't this feeling seems to evanesce and lift away, like wood turned to smoke.

Carlo Rotella, director of American Studies at Boston College, last wrote for the Magazine about music in Chicago.