A symphony of light prepares to flow once more down the street. History names it the March of the Torches and, again, it will not be something abstract, but the materialisation of many small private ceremonies, turned into a public act.

Every torch that will advance tonight will have been lit, first, in the imagination, and then hastily built in the restlessness of a courtyard, on a workshop bench, on the ground… And that initial spark will be the nucleus of what will then manifest: the will transformed into light, the personal fused with the common to create a geography of warmth and purpose.

The darkness always recedes before the tide of flames, and as the fabric advances, like fire in search of its forge, the night accepts the rite. The march is a declaration of ideas, of principles.

The importance, then, lies not in carrying a torch, but in being part of the tight-knit group that walks beneath it, feeling its radiant, summoning warmth.

Facing the old enemy that threatens the Homeland, there is much fight to be had that needs fire – the kind that illuminates and the kind that burns – and the idea, the principles, the courage and the anti-imperialism of the fathers we honour.

The march is a space of pure presence, where beauty dwells, is realised, and remains in the city’s memory. In the end, the feeling of having been part of something transcendent will persist.

Yet, perhaps the most enduring thing will not be the grand image of the illuminated multitude, but the succession of lighting one torch after another, from the friend who lights it to the one next to them, of ensuring nothing is extinguished.

The testimony of the night will be a generation’s certainty: the fire, like hope, endures.