Wood-Cutting Days
After the chainsaws stop snarling, roaring,
and smoking and get set down, hot, the woods
seem to reassert their muted sounds.
And after the splitting-mauls fall hundreds
of times, and you're sweating and smelling
of sawdust, chain-oil, and last night's whiskey,
and after the truck is loaded with freshly split wood
redolent of sap and pitch, then it's time to load
yourself into the stove of time, to let it consume you
and reproduce you decades later, when you're
in the midst of a task and stop and remember
one of those wood-cutting days, back when,
although knowing otherwise, you let yourself
indulge in the idea that there was an unlimited
number of such days. And there's such comfort
in knowing at least the woods are still there,
that all your sweating, time, and toil (how funny)
didn't make a dent in the forest, forest of wood.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
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