Yellow leaves litter our camp in under the pepperwoods. Dust rests atop the meadow’s tinder-dry grasses. Fine silt rises with each flip-flop-clad footstep down to the river. Dwindling flow lengthens cobblestone’s mossy beards. By late afternoon, sunlight is half-hearted. Wind moves upriver. Kids, playing in the deep pool, quiet. Preschoolers shiver, towels wrapped around shoulders. Parents pack up to leave. Still the bear comes down into the clearing at twilight, scrambles up leathery, abandoned tree for summer’s last sweet apple. We, too, come out. We sit in the clearing and watch stars, breathing the last tang of dry pepperwood.
Mary Thibodeaux Lentz
This article appears in Trial by Fire 2023.