Seated at my kitchen table, I watch oak logs settle in the ancient fieldstone fireplace. Sunrise hasn’t yet touched the valley’s rim when the first match strikes. Kindling catches – pine needles, then twigs, then bark. Each dawn repeats this small magic, a perfect companion to steaming coffee.
The ember’s soft glow pulses like a heart. A blue flame dances at the bark’s edge, then leaps to find deeper wood. Heat ripples the morning air, carrying traces of pine sap and seasoned oak. The ember’s soft glow and the fire’s crackling voice speak an old language. Split logs remember summer sun as they surrender to flame. Each pop and spark carries echoes of green wood, spring sap, winter storms weathered.
Our ancestors knew this voice. They gathered around fires in caves, in longhouses, in cottages and camps. The same warm light that paints my kitchen walls once flickered on their faces. When I gaze into these coals, their mornings blur into mine. Time grows thin as smoke that I could wave away to touch their dear, weathered hands, still warm from tending their own morning fires.
Outside, bare branches scratch a cold sky, and frost rims fallen leaves. While chickadees fluff their feathers and deer grow thick winter coats, humans gather wood.
And, in defiance of the darkly tilting planet, we use twig and branch to conjure the August sun.