Splitting Wood
…………………..
Remembering my brother
…………………..
October seems too swift
mushrooms melt into the soil
and salamanders rise from beneath the earth
like the dead doing a dance
…………………..
and time itself is a wedge forced into heartwood
splitting decades into neat bundles
…………………..
……but the cords
stacked with the promise of heat
are never enough
…………………..
……there’s still that chill
that certain need for another autumn
…………………..
for days my muscles still ache
with the memory of motion
…………………..
for days I remember one chunk
splitting into two
falling open like books
like arms of a dead brother
…………………..
and the perfume of cedar
……rising
…………………..
it’s in this space between two seasons
deftly blended with the flat of a thumb
as languid as a plush cat stretching before
the incessant heat of a woodstove
…………………..
when sky and land fuse
into the same bottomless gray
…………………..
the entire world becomes a sponge
and each step squeezes juice
from its pores
…………………..
when losses splinter off like kindling
when I turn back to kiss this blank page
……of fog
whispering politely.
…………………..
…………………..
by Patrick Loafman
from The Poetry Journal; Issue 1, Spring 2008