Bonfire

 Yesterday afternoon the Javanese construction workers in the area gathered all the various refuse from the side of the road, all the unwanted bits of board and shingle and window sill and concrete frame, scraps from the bush and fallen tree branches, uprooted stumps, newspapers and cartons and paper sacks and bundles of dry grass, and in the evening time when darkness came they lit fire to the mounds of wreckage and they sat at the roadside or on the steps of unoccupied dwellings gazing into the flames, hugging their knees, as silent and contemplative as those who meditate on the progress of an ocean surf. The scent of the smoke, as delicious in its own right as if it had arisen from a new-baked apple pie, drew me out as well, into the flickering black and orange shadows, into the hundred fires and nights of the long past, into the same hush and ruminating whisper, to to sit shoulder to shoulder in quiet repose.