Tending an Autumn Fire

 Charlson Meadows, MN

The logs resident in the fire pit, remainders of the meditations of some prior anonymous visitor, were damp despite the covering lid.  The logs stacked neatly in a rack beneath the trees were curiously dry.  Paper was stored in a nearby bin, along with kindling and a container of lighters.  We arranged the fuel in a teepee of optimism, lit the paper and hoped.

A mild October day, the fire was more aspirationally aesthetic than necessity, but we nonetheless drew close and exposed ourselves to the warmth when flames slowly appeared behind the steamy smoke.

Like a doting grandmother ladling chicken soup, we continued to feed logs to the flame as though its appetite- and our meditative stay - knew no limits.  It crackled and licked and smoldered and smoked, and we breathed in the woody scent, smiling at the extravagance of it while adding yet another log.

There is more smoke than flame - a common enough phenomenon, I’m poignantly aware; or perhaps the flames in this case are simply subtle, making their way incrementally into and among the cracks within the logs rather than showing in the spaces between them.

Perhaps we could use more of that in this volubly exhibitionist culture where it has to be big and blazing to be real - or at least acknowledged.

All of a sudden a tongue of wind licks the embers and a finger of fire points in my direction and signals for yet another log.  Dubious, but dutiful, I comply.  The supervising trees shimmer with the breeze and, as if in moral support, sprinkle in their kindling leaves which curl and disappear into the flames.

The flames rise and fall; disappearing altogether for all I know, only to erupt without announcement.  Passions behave the same, as artists and lovers have long observed.  It’s hard to account for the falling; easier, perhaps, the rising.  In either case, a constant supply of logs is essential.

As with this fire, all the logs won’t be consumed; but they will be ready the next time the cover is dragged away and the foddering paper is stuffed and matched;

...and the memory of this autumn day is reignited.