Camping in Arizona: A Night with Plato
T. Karsten Braatz
It's hard to think about taxes when you are sitting around a campfire,
(campfires were made for philosophy) listening to the heat
popping the damp wood you gathered just when the rain hit,
and rolled under the station wagon to keep it from getting completely drenched. And then after the last lightning bolt had turned the forest an eerie blue,
and most of the rain had stopped dripping from the tall pines,
you had emerged from the car and hopped puddles to the little bait store
by the lake to buy the newspaper.
Starting the fire was a practice in frustration,
stuffing the whole Sunday edition and handfuls of pine needles
under the wooden pyramid until the damp wood finally caught fire,
slowly at first,
the pine needles sending smoke signals up to Orion chasing bears across the sky, and then it was a roaring fire,
with yellow-orange flames that snapped at low-hanging branches
before disappearing into the smoky air,
casting Platonic shadows on the station wagon's peeling sides.
Later, when the little inferno had become a glowing circle of coals,
and you had switched your seat several times to keep the smoke from stinging your eyes,
he had come into the firelight,
wearing designer hiking boots and a K-Mart cowboy hat,
and introduced himself as Charles Green,
an accountant from Scottsdale,
and camping with his family just down the road.
You had been friendly (as hard as it is to talk business around a campfire,
it's even harder to be unfriendly)
but you were glad when he said, "Nice meetin' you pardner,"
and tipped his hat like the suburbia cowboy he was,
and found his way back to his motor home with the license plate reading RUF-N-IT, leaving you alone again with your campfire,
and your forest,
and your stars,
and Plato.
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