When things seem to be all normal, and life is clicking by one day at a time and the breezes flow through the tops of the trees, and skitter the leaves and they fall down through the limbs, you can feel it coming.
The soap pots are now still, but one day in the not too distant future they will be mired in the red hot heat of the fire, smoke will boil up from the bottom, the inside will be creamy and popping, the lye will be used, and it will flavor the scent of the clothes to be washed and rinsed and hung on the lines out the back door and then on the bones and backs of all who live there. Grandpa will build the fire, Mom and Dad will turn the soap, Grandma will cut it and make it to be wrapped in paper, and stacked for later use.
The fires of yesterday still smolder in the memories, pop in your head at night and make you whole and clean again.
Ralph Peck
Photo by Ralph Peck
At the foot of Keetonville Hill near Claremore, Oklahoma
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