Mourning Wood

My mother had flaking, white skin
which when peeled would reveal
her tender underneath.

My father was wholly lumber jack, and I am half,
which makes me a murdering son of a birch,
as close as I can figure.

        I don't really understand myself,
(This confusion is sometimes seen as apology.)


I live in fear of Honey Locust
and what men do to her.
The way her legs are broken
and piled like logs in pictures,
the even, parting limbs
riven further by the axe.

It makes me quite uncomfortable,
I cannot stop for looking.


But what can you do when you're young and the sun is high
and your sap is high
but step outside and spread your limbs?
And stretch and swing your axe
again and again and again?

Take a crack at her,
make your mark, your notch, your hinge
and use leverage to bring her down.
Listen as she whistles as she falls.
That's the closest they come to screaming.

Clear cutting just gives the rest
space to grow.  Makes room for new saplings,
among old stumps of women,
fighting back with phantom limbs,
armless scar tissue, flat enough to serve tea on.

They obviously want it
why else are they outside like that?


        These things I am told, as I grow.


But the metaphor begins to crack
with old rot and tilt in the wind.

Women can work the chainsaw, too.
The first tree I ever really saw
was a shaggy monk named Horace.
The second wore a stags head and had a vagina.

Trees are respected for their serene scenery in cemetaries
for the shade and shelter they provide
the puny human tombstones at their feet.
Can you blame them for their pity?
We're so short lived.

And what about the birds and bees who
do the actual fertilization?
What about fruits?


        I don't know.

I'm just a poet with a wood pulp pencil,
working against wood pulp paper.
Making word pulp poetry.
Maybe I am just too tainted to be taken seriously.
but can you blame me?
I only took what was given me
and never asked for more;
I did the best that I could
with my wood.