Old Writing: Wood Smoke

I came out of the building today

And into the overcast afternoon

In the air was the faint scent of wood smoke

Though it wasn’t cold

And still early yet

But it carried me back

To lost afternoons

And the smells of thing remembered

But long since passed-

The loam of rich soil

As I lay in bed of leaves and needles

Fallen from boughs that watched over me in the night

When no one else would

Cigarette smoke

And a certain, sharp smell

That I’ll always associate with yellow t-shirts.

As I walked to my car,

I remembered afternoons gone

And a little part of me lost

To the wood smoke

As it faded into the deep grey dusk