With the heat index already nearing triple digits
by ten o’clock in the morning,
it doesn’t really seem all that rational
to be setting fire to a pile of old hay, wilted branches
and a bit of dried brush tumbled up together.

A storm-felled elm lies with its upper branches
touching against the pile.
The roots that remain have been enough
to keep it green two months after it fell
and even after I cut clear through the trunk
near the base, some branches still hold fresh leaves.

Using my small DeWalt chain saw, 
I work along the fringes,
cutting off limbs and trimming them into smaller lengths.

The heat of the burning brush pile ebbs a bit
and I toss on a couple of armloads of dead branches.
At this proximity, the heat is intense on bare skin
as I step in close to pitch a larger piece on top of the pile.

As soon as I step away, 
it feels cool and strangely refreshing.

I stop for a moment, though,
feeling my sweat-soaked clothes
and know that the coolness is an exaggeration,
a denial of the reality that I am seventy
and working in the sort of humid heat
that can quickly deplete the body’s stores
of water and electrolytes.

In my younger days, 
growing up in the red clay country of West Kentucky,
I grew used to the smell of fresh manure in the milk barn,
the sight of blood and guts in dressing game
and slaughtering livestock for the family’s needs.

Mister Roy Morris, our neighbor three miles away, 
got so used to the smell and taste of sulphur water 
that he could stop at the end of a row of burley,
down half a jug of that nasty stuff,
iced and sweating through a paper sack,
wipe his mouth, take a relieved sigh, 
and offer me a drink.
Even on the hottest days, 
I could barely stand to take just a sip.

It is good to adapt to the miseries of life,
to muster endurance and develop character,
but it is not a good thing
when what is truly strange becomes so commonplace
that we start to think “This is how it is supposed to be.”

Love does not leave bruises,
devotion does not break bones,
repetition does not turn lies into truth,
and a brush fire’s illusions
offer no protection on a day 
when you can get heat stroke 
working in the shade.

H. Arnett
8/13/2024