Bourbon Headstones

In June we lit campfires. We would take yellowing sections of a month-old newspaper and crinkle them beneath pine cones. A lighter would flare. Flames from the paper would crawl into the crevasses of the pine cone and the tar would pop. A small cabin of logs was built around this. Occasionally adding a log, we would sit and drink whiskey as the earth wove its breath through tall meadow grasses and pine stands. A few chords strung together on a harmonica knit together jokes and stories of comic tragedy about ex lovers who were allergic to wood smoke. Raccoons would brave the light, curious for gram crackers and a mostly eaten bag of marshmallows. Occasionally we allowed silence to listen to the whippoorwill and crickets saturated the air. And then more silence. Gazes would fixate on flames and dreams would be dreamt as innumerable other suns would set into the tree line and ours would peak above a foggy horizion.