Burning

Like this, he said.
A stone circle first
then paper (FT’s best)
then twigs then kindling
then, when that’s caught,
a log.
And another:
a teepee or crossways.
A path for the air.

Camping chairs shifting forward then back
a dance with the cold and
the size of the fire
the kind of wood
(oak’s best, well seasoned)
and how many clothes
we’d lugged into
which Castilian landscape.

Bottles surrounded us
(Chinchon’s good, but best
with coñac).
The bonfire beacon
summoned
shepherds and in pairs, guardias,
and frozen, parched hikers:
all offered a copa
and given a smoke.

Those fires: the cracking and
smoke and bane of
scorpions, spiders, the beasts
that emerged from their midst:
swallowing, omnomming
the night. My youth smells like this.

But the first time —
when I had just learned
to read —
that time, when we walked half a block,
he and I, with our tent and two bags
and the matchbox that held
“cosy” and “warm”

The dry thistles caught and
he beat them: slap! thwack!
the bag snuffing the life
yet there was the mock, the crackling
flames, rebirthing themselves:
That time, I saw something bigger
than Dad
and learned fear.

Ten years
since the flames took the flesh
off his bones
and consumed it all:
fire bigger than Dad —
the land cracks,
the breeze lifts,
and it’s
re-licking its
lips.