Around Innumerable Pits, Waiting

You can engage or disengage around
the fire pit, look toward the house or the stars
you can’t see in the blackness above for
the tongues flickering around the cured logs
from the water maple that once held a
tree house, becoming an empty space in
the ground that we lined and filled. I can hear
the waterfall we put there, rushing down
rocks we gathered the day the health food store
burned, set on fire by a burglar trying
to hide his prints, off in the distance as
we loaded the stones for the new pond, the
black plume rising without resistance in
to the air bleached by early August, a
sun already insistent on our skin.
But that was day, and this is dark. As far
as I know, many souls gather around
innumerable pits, waiting to be
reminded, for something to happen, the
last blood moon of our lifetime, hoping the
night remains clear and they can stay awake.