Sweetness and Smoke

He remembered the Ohio of his youth. Winters of pure, glistening snow. His parents taking him on wagon rides over hidden, winding trails through naked woodlands. Swooping great horned owl. Fog-breathed whitetail deer, and string-like clouds flirting with the cool, pearlescent cup that was his moon. At trail's end, wagons emptying. Families standing and sitting around a great, crackling bonfire. The smoke-laden breath of burning hickory, maple, and ash stinging his eyes and lungs. So aromatic. Warm cider and cinnamon. Cookies and treats. People singing. The plush fragrance of coffee that he was still too young to share. It was all splendid adventure. Afterward. Falling into a dreamless, hibernal sleep before getting halfway home. Later in winter. People drawing the blood of the maple tree into buckets. He had seen it drip from miniscule tap-wounds in the bark. As the tree was alive, he wondered if it hurt? Workers hauling the sap-laden buckets to slat-sided shacks deep within the forest. The maple's lifeblood being rendered into the most savory syrup and maple sugar candy. Sweet treats and a delicacy for pancakes and waffles. Ambrosia, his mother and father called it. Life was all sweetness and smoke. Crisp, clear, untried. His mother and father were so right. Sweetness and Smoke 4-30-15 Free Verse