Spring Bonfire at Tamanend Park - The Rain Held off until 9 pm - Poem: Sacred Ghosts at the Bonfire

 Don and Eileen's first bonfire. Don is from NJ, Eileen from the Northeast. Don's 95-yo father is at one of those Sunrise homes.

Yes, we are a graying nation, and get locked up in special holding cells until we kick the bucket or bite the dust or croak.

The mood of the Bonfire was different since we had it in the Spring - great idea, Noam! - and it stayed light until - what? - nearly 8 PM.

 Preparing our doggies. Hebrew National.

 Ruth, said Larry Kirschner, this hot dog has your name on it. It sure did and I christened it with relish and spicy mustard.

Ellen brought trail mix - loved those walnuts and dried apricots - and forgot to take her recyclable bag home with her.

It's at my house, Ellen, and the bald eagle is staring at me from across the room. He's frowning at me.

 Please tell him I mean no harm, and that I belong to the NRDC. I have no idea what that stands for but they protect wildlife. 

Zayde and Ada arrive in the slightly chilly weather. Rain came down in torrents in some places and barely at all in others.

Rich works at Lower Bucks Hospital. He told me they just expanded the psych ward to 100 beds. That area of Bucks has only one psych hospital.

Ada is a fantastic cook and baker.

Her moist chocolate brownies are out-of-this world! Don't tell anyone but I selected the biggest one on the plate. Hmmm, like Pinocchio grew a long nose when he lied, my belly has assumed Santa Claus proportions.

Ada's brownies have just introduced themselves to Ellen's walnuts and apricots. I'll bet Ada could whip up some sort of Walnut-Apricot pie.

We're ready to go on another Sunday Hike. Mark lives in Bensalem and just discovered Silver Lake. I used to go there on my lunch hour when I worked as a therapist at NHS.

Part of a relay team of runners, Sally and her brother have run in the dark. She was talking about being a vegan and I mentioned Scott Jurek. She read his book, which my daughter Sarah helped research.... and

 
 coincidentally, Heather, below is reading the book now.

Heather said to me: Did you ever work at NHS?

I looked at her. Who was this mysterious Miss Heather? I'd never seen her before. Turns out she was a secretary in the Wraparound Program.

Did you know Sam, the Indian guy? Yes, she said. She also knew a woman named Sandy Anderson who I adored and Julie Imhof. Oh, the running of these names once again across my tongue.

Just sent Julie a message on Facebook. I don't wanna intrude on her life and be her 'friend,' but I did ask her if she's still in touch with the old gang.

In one of her posts, she asked people to pick up two pieces of litter every day.

Good girl, Julie! Graduate of Philadelphia Biblical College.

 Noam, with shepherd's crook, tends to the fire. Noam is a beautiful name, but everyone thinks it's "Noah."

And, in fact, he IS the reincarnation of Noah - he was born in the land of Israel - but keeps it to himself.

I did see a giraffe and a tiger in the back seat of his car, so mayhap......

Todd aka Prometheus, keeper of the flame, came early to drop off the logs.

Todd, hope Pearce won his lacrosse game. Helen and I stayed until 11 pm watching the flames and then putting them out before we left.

 Ready for dessert? I was ready the moment I got there. Ada's chewy and rich brownies. Are they from America's Test Kitchen?

 Girl's Night Out.

 Heidi brought two deaf friends of hers. One lost his hearing at age two from meningitis. The other was 8. And there's Jason - what does your T-shirt say? - who talked about the importance, for him, of having an adrenalin rush from his job as a volunteer fireman.

Heidi's kids Cheyenne, on the left, and Walter, with girlfriend Kendra, home from Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

Heidi has two other kids from a previous marriage. Bianca is studying nursing at Jefferson and is almost ready to graduate. Linus is her son, a doctor. Note the wonderful names that run through Heidi's family,

How many Heidi's do you know? How many Linus's - or Beckett's - which is the name of his adopted baby son.

 Leave it to.... Linda! She's roasting an apple. "It's not as good as I thought, Ruthie," she said. Well, I guess a baked apple takes a good 20 minutes or half an hour.

 Linda made these delicious Whoopee Pies with sugar-free vanilla icing. The wafers were from a Pillsbury cake mix.

Delicious, Linda, I shouted from the table, while she was roasting her apple.

I'd know Heidi's forearm anywhere as she roasts a triumvirate of marshmallows.

We were teasing Rich earlier. He attended overnite camp from age 5 to 15. His dad was a pharmacist and wanted to get him out of the city. Yet they never made S'Mores at camp. Even to this day, Rich remembers how homesick he was at age 5. What are you crazy sending your kid away at age 5?

Are we safe?

Saul Miller, doctor of dental surgery, will know what this means. It's from a movie I refuse to see b/c it's about torture in the dental chair.

 Benched: Linda, Ruthie, Ada and Helen of Troy.

Helen and I were the last to leave. A veteran camper, Helen has taught new female campers how to pee on the grass. We both did this before we drove home.

We talked about many things, cabbages and kings.

"Dr Helen" is visiting a dying Louisa Lance, MD, who has pancreatic cancer. You can't choose the way you die, but Helen - or was it Ada? - said there's a Yiddish expression wishing you a good death.

Said Helen, "If Aunt Ruth were still alive, she would know it."

It was tonite that I learned Dora had died.

I met Dora a month ago at Brandywine at Dresher, Reflections Unit, a euphemism for their minds are gone and we're counting the days until they pass.

Dora was a tiny woman, very "with it," 92 if a day, and now the days are all the same to her, for Dora is no more. She went quickly.

Who will mourn for Dora?

We talked of many things: Helen's corneal abrasion in Vail - my upcoming cataract operation and the surrendering of my contact lenses on Mother's Day - Helen's large family, including Avis, which is pronounced Ah-vis - gas gauge running on empty, Jackson Brown - throwing left-over hot dogs in freezer.

A gentle rain was falling on the roof. Suddenly, like someone turned up the volume on the radio, the rain poured down in torrents and it felt like oceans of water were being dropped on our roof.

It was thrilling. Adrenalin thrill!

I injected more insulin than I've ever done in my life. 30 units and I was still standing. I told Helen that I might be going 'low' and if I felt I was, I'd run to the car to eat the leather seats. Uh, my protein bar in the glove box.

Sure enough, when I got home, my sugar was 54, not in the danger zone, but in the eating zone. Perfect! I ate half a banana with impunity.

SACRED GHOSTS AT THE BONFIRE

They, too, made fires,
the ones before us
striding easily across
the Bering Strait
before quakes severed
mate from mate
pemmican
squash
lacrosse

Then the impasse with
the acquisitive European
who twisted their Christ
to do their bidding
Land ho!
Land's ours!

Some like William Penn
in his Quaker oatmeal hat
refused to torch them
We, attuned to our
Buddha, Jehovah,
Swedenborg, and
teary-eyed Jesus
meet beneath the
covered pavilion
at Tamanend Park.

Todd rolls open the
locked iron gates
of the fireplace
ashes of other fires
like fine talcum
fill the bottom

The master stoker
adds log after log
a fire lifts itself
toward the night sky
the curling smoke
a message no Lenape
will ever receive

Only the animals
deer with their wild innocent eyes
owls, woodchucks, sleepy sparrows call
Stay away!
Stay away!
The enemy is nigh.

We move toward the fire
drawn by an ancient dream
spun a million years ago
All else vanishes
the early evening
the rising of the moon
the anxiety of
being alive one minute
struck down the next
Wasn’t it Garofola’s best friend
felled by a heart attack at forty-five?

Helen taps the Dutch oven
that belonged to her newly
departed mother also named Helen
I hold out my paper cup
as her mother’s ladle
scoops out the hot mulled cider
I drink as I gaze at the dark fields
my lips sticky
yearning for more.