How often do things line up this nicely? Those sticks
you gathered from the yard to spare the mower
and piled behind the barn I let dry and used all summer
for kindling. The rate at which you acquired and I burned
them: nearly perfect. I loved this, the way our tiny flames
merged and conspired while we stood watch. Restless,
prodding. How we let them grow from our little stone basin—
standing up, straightening out as if startled from bed.
They got taller, sometimes your height, sometimes
even mine. Like that we could linger for hours,
ignoring those chairs I built for us. We’d migrate,
misremembered buffalo, in silence or something like it
as we circled the fire, sheltering
always on the smokeless side.
This was the before. We knew it at the time.
We would go extinct the same way dinosaurs did,
becoming birds. Get smaller, yes, and more afraid.
Night would end. I would ferry kettlefuls of water up
the hill from the house to quiet it for good, return in
the morning to toss whatever slurry remained
to the woods. I was happy like that, alone
in new undergrowth, thick and primeval. Alone
with the gentle insults of the mockingbird.
theatlantic.com