There’s something about campfire;
The scent of wood burning
And smoke rising higher…
I close my eyes.
I blink open and I’m back
With our ancestors of hunters
And dwellers of caves,
Sitting by the flames,
Watching the fire cast
Shadows upon stone.
Mixing water and mud
With an old, cracked bone
In a futile attempt to
Capture on cave walls
The fearsome beauty
Of the blaze that could
Consume us all.
I close my eyes.
Squint open to find myself
In the Rockies on a full moon night
In a circle ‘round a fire, with drums
Pounding and voices raised
In a chorus with the wolves,
Howling praises to the Mother
Of the good, green Earth.
The Elder Chief takes the peace pipe
Inhales the harsh tobacco
And passes it around.
Exhaling smoke, he begins
To recount stories and folklore
Of wise turtles and great Eagles
And earth spirits come and gone.
The young listen to the wise;
Imaginations taking flight
The fire dances in their eyes,
Wide and shining in delight.
I close my eyes.
In the early hours of the morning
When everyone is sleeping sound,
And the blaze, no longer burning,
Is reduced to embers on the ground,
I open my eyes.
Thin wisps of smoke still rise;
Ethereal fingers reaching high,
But disappear in wistful sighs
Before reaching the dawning sky.
I smell the scent of campfire
And something primal stirs;
I am the stoic hunter
From days of caves and furs.
I am a Native in the snowy mountains
Beneath a sky full of stars by the thousands.
And in the silence of the night,
A crackling fire burns in the woods
And under the swirl of the Northern Lights,
You’ll hear me howling with the wolves.