Woodstack
The days shorten up,
bit by bit.
Summer takes a bow.
(No one applauds this seasons performance.)
Autumn marches on.
A neighbour delivers wood for winter.
Great rounds of pine
in a heap.
The axe and the splitter emerge from
their annual hibernation.
Axe and splitter take turns.
Rounds become pieces.
The hacks and thuds splinter,
separate rings,
divide.
A knot screams,
as the wedge
separates the twisted cells
from each other.
Muscles strain
and wood flies to the woodpile.
I am warm from work.
The pile shrinks as
each armload
shifts
from the pile to the growing stack.
Three long stacks,
under cover,
dry,
fuel for the cold days ahead.
The curve of this piece meeting the triangle
of that.
Slowly it comes together.
My woodstack.
I recall my dad
carefully putting the jigsaw
of wood together
into a stack
tidy,
prepared.
His woodstack.
Then, in Bhutan,
my delight.
People
stacking wood
in the same way.
Tidy and prepared.
Their woodstack.
A defence
to shield off
the cold.
