Best Woodpile Poems
There is a woodpile in my in-laws’ cellar, and some coal, but other rumored things also.
And it has been there a long time since anyone tripped down these broken concrete steps.
Maybe twenty or thirty years; we inherited this home a long time ago.
We have sold it four times on contract,
which has fallen through again.
My husband is not here,
He cannot take it.
But I can, so I take a couple of steps,
Until I get within a foot, when I stop dead as
I can smell the mold through the three-inch door.
The rumor is that there are treasures down there.
I do not know. We were never allowed near this cellar door.
Now I am sixty-six, so technically old enough to go down into this cobwebby den,
But I can smell the mold through the door.
So I back up and rest in an old lawn chair, left by one of the people who thought they
were buying the house before they decided to desert it.
I can still smell the mold, so I back up a bit further, the sun on my face, my feet leaning against a gentle lavender clover.
I am terrified of mold, as I am an asthmatic, and mold could trigger some awfulness in me.
So here I sit, staring as others wander in and out, poking among dusty things
That are disintegrating as they are being brought out into the sun.
Other relatives are coughing; trying to breathe as they haul green and brown stuff out,
Most indistinguishable as real things at first or second glance.
Most needing a power washing, that would completely decimate it.
Maybe she had the right idea, one says, pointing at me, as I lie here, soaking
Up the sun rays. I take off my shoes and push my toes into the clover.
Then I turn my face up, letting the sun hit my nose.
Are you kidding? A teenager yells. This treasure hunt is great!
She runs back down the steps to haul out more loot that her prissy mother
Will never let her take in the car, let alone in the house.
I know because I am prissy girl’s mother.
So here I sit, in a falling-apart green lawn chair, watching the show.
Thinking how my mother-in-law is probably up in heaven laughing, as she too
Smells the mold through that cellar door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His language was colloquial~
the tongue of the field hand,
the woman hanging laundry in the wind,
the child chasing butterflies in the tall summer grass.
He heard their music,
the unpolished truth
in the rhythm of their days,
and created poems of roads less traveled, of snow and shadow.
He spoke softly like the wind
blowing through New England’s sugar maples,
the rustling of leaves that told of sap and seasons,
of roots gripping the stubborn earth.
He wrote of that patch of old snow stubborn, denying spring,
a metaphor worn smooth
yet still holding the chill
of a deeper understanding.
He knew this place,
the bite of wind,
the quiet conversation of the earth,
spoken in monotone.
His blank verse wasn't blank at all,
but an empty canvas stretched taut,
ready for the brushstrokes
of a farmer's hand, a lover's lament, a child's bewilderment.
His poetic technique
not just of form but of feeling~
the heart beating its own iambic pulse
in quiet New England afternoons.
He wrote with humble gratuity
not seeking grand pronouncements,
but the whisper of a leaf,
the argument a woodpile makes with winter.
Life, Frost seemed to say,
was not a theorem to be proven,
but a landscape in which to live,
each image he created a doorway, left slightly ajar.
Note:Robert Frost's last words are reported to have been, "I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." This quote, often paraphrased, reflects the themes of choice and individuality that permeate his poetry. However, it's worth noting that these words are attributed to his legacy rather than being an exact recounting of his final utterance, as he passed away on January 29, 1963. (duckai.com)
Over the pine trees the ball I threw
Neighbor’s bay window the ball went through
My neighbor asked me if I would?
Come over to his house, split a cord of wood
In the woodpile see the chipmunk pray
I do not want to be the Bald Eagle’s prey
From the woodpile a gagging scent
A payment my neighbor’s skunk had sent
Fires burning, burning bright.
Not for warmth or even light.
Burning flesh seared to the bone.
Was this the sense of martyrdom?
Mary Tudor was the Queen,
return of Popery her dream.
Henry's child without a doubt,
her fathers deeds to turn about.
Men and women, loosing life,
butchers son and bakers wife.
Bishops, clerics, Lords and sires,
Not one spared the holy fires.
Thomas Cranmer was her aim,
he caused her mother so much pain.
Anne Boleyn's most errant knight,
causing Mary's own sad plight.
Hooper, Ridley, Cranmer too,
English folk, all good and true.
All subsumed to appease her bile,
sacrificed on the stakes woodpile.
Fourteen score souls finally died,
entering the flames with pride.
Heretics, each and every one.
Assured of joining God's own son.
As death became well-nigh routine,
The people cried God Save the Queen.
But they, in their hearts, were wary,
amongst themselves called her Bloody Mary.
crawling through tall green grass
making miles of tunnels
in fields all around
a lake, the yearly rain makes
floating on rafts
crafted from grandpa's woodpile
hot brown hills of slick dry grass
slid and sped down
in cardboard boxes
old knotted oak tree
climb up like a ladder
jump into leaves piled high
acorns falling
my childhood pastimes
wonderful memories of home
Who were you today,
at your best moments?
Grouchy hermit
already missing quality dream times
and rhythms
when chimes greet pre-light's crust frosty dawn,
to get Yang, then Yin, up and out of our sangha,
ready to enter their own daytime sanghas,
tired drama of such anciently perennial retired,
repeat,
reiterate,
Monday through Friday.
Notice
red coal scale patterns
in blackened ash logs,
burning to fluffy carbon chalk,
nutrient potential for some soils,
although not mine,
perhaps my neighbor's?
Joy
for a bright, although admittedly too intermittent, sun,
sliding in and out of hiding.
A smile,
where one would otherwise have been sadly absent.
Cold
feeling Arctic on my ears and neck
and nose
and onward through
toward my aching bone marrow,
near my well-heated
and brightly lit
domestic non-destination.
Ellen Fisher on NPR saying
"No one gets out of love alive."
with so much enthusiasm and passion
for regenerative feelings and empathic maturing capacity
to manage anger's ego-offense
with a strong remembering love's co-opportunity defense
against high risk anthro-entitled,
narcissistic ego-bratty behavior.
Gratitude
for Yin political and economic cooperative investments
seeking Earth harmonic balance.
Terror
of untimely taxing rest as grace,
of older-wiser intent
without time to hear Earth's glamorous response,
to new found mutually speaking freely parts
and songs of dancing glances
Eagerly lifting
blue tarp skirt
of my elegantly stacked woodpile,
seducing me with more hard fuel
for erotic clandestine fires.
Feeling PoisonYang feeding on my trinitarian blind
and bald spot,
sucking in any embodied nutrients she might hope to find
within such great grand fatherly care,
laughing together
at just how silly we appear
even to our wu-wei selves,
together better
than apart
Still mind embodied fullness
content contention in this narrow midway
modestly chasing Gods of True Love reborn
Resisting insisting
long-married Gods and Goddesses of Angry Past Deductions
fueling Fear of Future's Inductive Reduction
dualdark disfunction
Confluent inhumane demise
sinking unease
singing ease
to full mooned
yin-hibernating
yang-hypernation
waning waxing sways.
he sobs
hidden in the back lot beyond the woodpile
many days he has listlessly searched for her
wedding wing
thrown as she declared her
independence
or rather
that she never loved him
never?
dark soil and trampled gardens marked by deer
he is alone here
but nothing shines to guide him
nothing shines in the dirt
if only he could find it he'd have something
real
to show her
now her eyes are cast down
she drives away
fast
nothing shining.
The tail upon the broken glass
darkness surrounds a haunted soul
An eclipse rents the stolen mans home
trauma engulfs the woodpile homes
webs coat the wooden pine wood
crawlers inhabit the deserted home
the tale of death screams on the door
dark walls with illusions of fear
silhouettes is seen by the corridors
the old man warns with just a whisper
death defines the fire hazed home
tragic event left all inside ablaze
Morning rays blister upon the windows
meals are hot meat served on wood
the day he dares not to remember
heart almost platinum gem encrusted
he seeks no time to get counsel
but seeks reprieve instilling fear
He sits and stares into the sun set
pipe on his lip as he sings a tune
Woodpile is sorry for his loss and family
he sheds no tear and covers no tear
he burns inside Mr Old man Jonah
History of woodpile family fire
Earlier than usual, for the pigs have broken free from their pen,
We are allowed to quit the milking because someone must get them.
The excitement of getting to be with her sets us to a run
But when we discover the pigs, we know that it is done.
From the woodpile we gather two-by-fours with which we lay into
The backs of the wild beasts because it is all we can think to do.
They had formed a circle around her, pushing and pulling her pain
Her hind legs were strings of blood and bone, little did remain.
With curses of Christian children we hurled into the wind
We chased the beasts away from her, beating them for their sin.
Though her cries had quieted to whispers, she was crying still
And this time we cried with her, for we knew the what will.
Mother, we asked for the gun, but father was not home.
Mother, we asked for the knife, but the good knives would not be won.
My brother made me wait inside so I ran to the kitchen window
And perched myself on the sink, pulling the curtain low.
He sat with her head curled in his lap in the shade of the old tree,
Crying into the warmth of her neck and then to set her free
His small arms around her neck and his unanswered cries
Echoing across the plains and through the cold Dakota skies.
2/25/14
I never expected you to come to Australia first
Still with the appearance that I am familiar
I must travel across the ocean back and forth
And you? I wonder how could you come here?
I saw you climb the fence in our hometown
Up to my ears and blowing your horn
Then you asked me if I was afraid of
And I said: I like your beautiful song
We used to play hide and seek in a woodpile
I pretend that I don't know where you're hiding
You can't wait to stick your head out of the pile
You tell me you're right next to me with your song
I see you in this foreign country unexpectedly
Did you travel across the ocean to follow me
We meet in these wild fields when melancholy
The joy alike seeing relatives you bring to me
I always feel the coldness of the world
Many things are inconvenient to say publicly
But my heart has been filled with your love
When I need some real "friends" so eagerly
We know "friendship" already too many
The definition of them is confusing me
The Illusory "friendship" is hard to rely on
Only you, Wild Petunia, by thousands of miles
You come here to stay with me
HERMIT’S FIRE IN THE FROZEN MEDIEVAL FOREST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wind, a teeth-chattering dirge
through skeletal branches,
finds no purchase on the small flame.
He built it low, a secret
whispered to the snow-laden earth,
a defiant ember in the kingdom of ice.
Years bleed into seasons here,
marked only by the shrinking woodpile,
the lengthening beard, the deepening lines
etched by firelight and solitude.
He remembers faces,
ghosts flickering in the flames,
loves lost, battles fought,
a life traded for this quiet burn.
The forest breathes around him,
a vast, indifferent lung.
He is a mote, a spark,
yet the fire persists,
a stubborn refusal to surrender
to the long, cold night.
And perhaps, he thinks,
as the embers glow,
that is enough.
Just to burn.
Just to be.
There stands the painter upon his hill
His wife is gone but not his skill
On each and every rainy day
He hunkers down for an outdoor stay
A woodpile serves him as his chair
From which he casts his longing stare
Slowly the brush does touch the paint
As he pictures his departed saint
Quickening strokes all each knowing
His eyes now closed the paint a flowing
The colors before him come to life
The strokes reveal his teary wife
Over the pine trees the ball I threw
Neighbor’s bay window the ball went through
My neighbor asked me if I would?
Come over to his house, split a cord of wood
In the woodpile see the chipmunk pray
I do not want to be the Bald Eagle’s prey
From the woodpile a gagging scent
A payment my neighbor’s skunk had sent
The escape commenced.
The endless drive from middleclass suburbia
ala Levittown; across hill and dale,
packed in a 1947 black beauty
of a Lincoln Continental; to the land of Peyton Place
and Steven King; Maine.
Lemon up and tangerine down, Dad drives.
We wiggle and whine, Mom scolds.
A leg cramping journey made longer by
one too many pee brakes.
The dirt road pinged rocks of the chrome bumper;
we near the amorphous clapboard dream.
The violet light of the dash shows nine o’clock.
The ramshackle ashen white farmhouse
full of kissin cousins, cows and chickens;
Madonna’s home. Uncle Ken a mere decorative necessity;
Uncle ken who could charm the pants right off ya,
and obviously had, voila; cousins Georgie and Wayne.
Uncle Ken of the sweet smile and Chiclet teeth;
beer bottle in hand with his concrete company hat cocked to the side;
one long, tall, strawberry blonde, drink of water.
He was a God to us, two little girls, Snow White and Rose Red.
His only rival his son, gorgeous George;
Georgie boy, first cousin, first love.
Nights saw us hunker down under patch work.
Kissin cousins in twinned rooms.
Meeting for body heat in the frosted dawn
in a single wrought iron bed, scrawny eight year olds.
Heads under quilts breathing in and out to warm the pocket of air
we were the only heat on the second floor. With a mighty dash;
reminiscent of our favorite mouse [Mighty]
a charge was launched across the unfinished attic
to the backstairs to country kitchen.
Barefeet dodge raised square nails and splinters.
Bark bits impress frozen soles, as the stove's in house woodpile is jumped.
Twin dynamos skate across the linoleum to a copper kettle's whistle.
A white Windsor landing achieved, Aunt Madonna pours
cornflakes in porcelain white china bowls with a laugh.
Hunger, gelid, frigid, no nighty,
In a long coldly winter night,
Needy for a so big woodpile
In dark, solo I had to chop
Details are good chop --
sticks chum pal up --
marks choc-ice !!!
Choppy choosy !!
Wood not woo !
Cook not coo !
Warming,
fire up,
heat,
fill,
by