Burning

Writing this after spending three days burning the piles of honeysuckle I had spent the winter collecting.  I had to cut each plant up because it was too wet to just light the pile, and I had three of them. I used a portable burn pit, building up a nice bed of coals with old dry wood and then adding the wet green honeysuckle to the bed.  At times it would sizzle. The honeysuckle wood kept me warm three times - when I uprooted it, when I trimmed it to go into the fire pot, and when it burned. The fire was so hot that there were enough coals after the rain and snow to get a fire to reignite easily.  And so I used the same fire for days and days. I banked the coals, and it was ready in the morning to begin again.  

My parents were my neighbors and lived at the top of the hill on this honeysuckle farm.  My dad had a flagpole in his front yard. Each morning, he would raise the flag and then take it down in the evening.  When he got older he was no longer able to do that and so it became very weathered. When I took it down after his death, it was in tatters.  So on the first night of burning, after the sun was down, I retrieved his flag and remembering what he had told me about how to dispose of a flag, I laid it on the fire and watched it burn. Loving him and letting the honeysuckle help me honor and remember him.