Whose Camp? Visiting the house, at night he slips out into the backyard where, in days gone, he manufactured kingdoms from sticks and stones, chased butterfly dreams and ant-hill histories -- the stars have not changed that his father named for him -- but it startles him to see, now, at the end of the lot, a spotlight. Almost, he rushes back inside -- Who has set up a camp in the backyard? Then, with something between a laugh and a sob, he remembers. In twenty years since, where foxes once ran, where there was only honeysuckle, a development has been built, and that glare is no camp, but someone's home, back there where the dog of his childhood lies buried. He counts his breaths, standing in the darkness, counts and names to himself the unchanged stars, with the old, grey house at his back, and before him, the strange, new light where fireflies used to circle silent trees. W. Luther Jett |