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.