Ecotone: Writing About Place: FirePlace

I can think of two kinds of fire places, myself: The tragic kind that fills the neighborhood with an acrid smell and connotes horror and loss, and the kindly kind, smelling faintly of maple and crackling safely behind a screen in the living room. But there surely are more, like the cold fires that twinkle overhead from impossible distances or the smoldering rage I see in the eyes of my neighbor's growling cocker spaniel. -- P.