A Night of Campfires

Remember those nights so black the stars come right down to the horizon,

 Nights drugged with the smell of evergreen, 
A grey wolf howling in the distance.

Yes, there’s a campfire and a #10 tin can with a hole cut out for ventilation, 
and a pile of new twigs snapped from under the low pine boughs
where the rain doesn’t soak though to the core.

Green sticks whittled from the mountain willows,

Embers toasting marshmallows.

Not too close, now. Watch it!

Don’t touch it. Blow it out!

Charcoal bubbling and broken by molten inside cream. 

We wake up in a blue-white sunrise full of birds and dew and mountain dandelion,

drinking cold water from the rocky  creek,

smelling the fresh stream splashing and breaking in the early sun.