by Brent Raycroft
Al, you know that old wheelbarrow
you and Eurithe used?
Well there’s a new one now
and yours had gotten top-heavy
with that crust of concrete residue
and the wheel was busted anyway
so we knocked the struts and handles off
cut a roughly 8½ x 11 hole in the bottom
(to let rain- and melt- and douse-water out)
and lowered the bucket half-way into the dirt
as a liner for the new firepit.
The ring of rocks we snugged around it –
some of which you must have kicked and cursed
or stacked and sat upon a time or two –
is exactly eight meters from the A-frame.
Regulations! Let them come and measure it.
The liner’s a requirement, too. Otherwise?
The lake-soaked topsoil might ignite
endangering Prince Edward County.
Now I wonder about that work
and if we have created a new hazard:
a fire burning low your old wheelbarrow
will get pretty hot by evening’s end
and that rolled steel rim might not
be the best edge to lean on
for a poet-in-residence staring into embers.
But inspiration is always a bit of a
shock, isn’t it?
— from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 3