The frantic crackling log
sends forth a chemical lament,
filling the room with ghostly branches,
spectral sunlit needles
against blue skies
the laugh and chatter of us as children,
hiding and seeking from trunk to trunk
and climbing, resin scented,
to where the blue **** perch and squabble.
This dying breath
contains the whole life
and we sit, breathing it in,
remembering.