Charcoal Glade

Night. Smoke hangs low in the black firs around a small round glade on the ridge. Three domed kilns of packed earth and turf squat in the middle, orange light pulsing at their vents. Sparks climb from one of them and wink out among the branches. Beside it rises a half-built cone of logs stacked on end, still waiting for its skin of earth. Another mound has been broken open, and glittering black charcoal spills across the ground in heaps. Old kiln rings mark the grass all around, blackened circles overlapping across generations, some faint, some fresh. At the edge sits a turf hut with a low bench. Sacks of charcoal stand stacked beside a cart track that leads off between the trunks. Warmth rises from the ground itself. A thin moon shows through the haze, blue-grey against the ember glow.