Driftwood

Once towering cedars and hemlock, spruce and Douglas fir lie as limbless trunks in tangles of shredded and skinned logs littering a rocky beach.  Trees rubbed raw by sand and wave-tossed high on shore in howling storms are now piled driftwood in the cold spring wind. 

   In the summer children will rearrange them into forts. Lovers will nestle in their hollows away from prying eyes.  In the evenings families will stack and burn the logs in great bonfires  and their essence, as well as my memories, will drift down the beach on wood smoke perfumed by roasting hot dogs, hot chocolate and incinerated marshmallows.