It's Hard.

Writing is hard.

It is.

This poetry thing takes time.

It makes my head spin.

I do love overcoming the difficulty

and 

just writing it.

But thinking about doing it,

the writing thing 

and the thinking thing.

Like thinking about mowing the lawn

or thinking about chopping the wood

or even thinking about hanging out the washing...

Yes, it is the thinking about it that is hardest.

I think it is the thinking thing

most

that is hard.

The time thing,

that aspect of allowing 

myself time to sit

 and think

and write.

That is hard too.

Because there are so many other things to do that are 

possible to do.

What if I choose the wrong thing?

Can a poem be wrong?

These questions are hard now.

Writing at night.

It's hard too.

and 

quiet.

Quite hard.

Woodstack

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.