In the country, you burn the trash. This is something I learned about by going to visit my grandparents. When I was little, they lived just outside of town in a big farmhouse, on a large plot of land. There was a burn pit at the bottom of a sandy hill. Later, they sold the land and the house and moved to a manufactured home, which they placed in a field owned by another member of the family. There, they had burn barrels. My grandparents died 13 months apart, and once my grandpa had passed, it become our task to burn the trash. Ironically, we made a burn pit at the bottom of a sandy hill, and got to work. It was odd, throwing magazines and tv guides and other papers into the fire. It gave me a sinking feeling: I’m never coming back here. This part of my life is over.

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The fire burned low, sucking up his life

I stood watching, massing all my courage

Just to keep the tears away

But he still burned in the fire.

The smoking, tortured fragments of his life

Reached their charred and blackened fingers

To the sky, as if to say, “Please save me”

As escaped pieces darted across the shadowed sand

Frantic to lay down in the cool dust and die.

I stirred the burning mound, smoke bathing my face and hair

In the emptiness of the afternoon.

His face was in the flames

And he danced gracefully again with his beautiful wife

While I stood massing all my strength

So my mother would not see the tears that ached

To pour from my eyes.

It was supposed to be a new year

A time of new beginning and hope

But all I could see was the end of his life.

Belching black smoke and choking my heart in grief.