The Smell of Distant Bonfires By Bobby Stevenson

It was like being reborn,

When the fever waned,

Feeling that he had been spared,

For another hour, for another time,

He could raise his head a little,

The glass-sharp pain had run its course,

And through the sliver of space in the

Old cedar window,

He could smell the smoke of distant bonfires,

Somewhere, far across the lake,

No smell of gunpowder,

Or of war,

The woodsmen had passed on to new battles

And he had survived.