August Hearth

As the crickets fiddled in the tall dark grass and the bats swept through the sky, I sat in front of my chiminea, feeding the flames dead twigs and dried leaves. Cross-legged in my beach chair, with a salty paperback and a bowl of shelled peanuts at my feet, I sat under the towering twin oaks that stood like sentinels next to the door of my old cottage. Gray smoke and waifs of ash filtered through the leafy limbs that offered shade hours earlier. The field behind the back of the chiminea was almost pitch black, save for the moon and the fireflies, and depending on my mood, I sipped a chipped mug of coffee or a sweaty bottle of beer as I found solace while listening to baseball on my radio and feeling the fire’s warmth on my bare legs and arms.