I first wrote a version of this poem on New Year's Eve in 2007, but it still is true , at least as true as I can make it, with some tinkering and fine tuning--I hope--in 2014. And we still are grateful for our turn in this overwhelmingly beautiful, but troubled world...

With best wishes to you and yours for 2014 and beyond,

Sincerely,

Doug Skopp

Log by log

We stacked firewood on New Year’s Eve,
From one year almost into the next,
Locust mostly, some oak, some soft maple,
And here and there, some smooth white birch.
Our neighbor’s son-in-law had cut and split
The logs short enough to fit our new stove
And dumped them here in the scuffed snow:
A sculpture in its own right.

Where the black locust’s furrowed bark
Separated clean, it lay like strips
From an ancient mammoth’s hide,
Thick and dark, edges bruised red
By his chain saw into ragged husks.
The naked logs, though, were smooth,
And veined with insect paths, cold as bones.

If the locust bark was still on tight
We could grasp and heft a heavy load—
Two or three sometime under an arm.
Some log butts were too broad,
Though, for our mittened hands,
And defied our hoisting more than one.
We held the soft maple by the stumps
Of its maimed branches, like handles
On mallets too heavy to swing.
Two oaks made a weighty armful,
Slowing our steps between heap and stack
Easier were the birch quarter rounds.
Sometimes we found them reassembled
In our arms, as though still a whole log,
Until we scattered them all over again
Across the stack, leveled and propped
By their edges, their wedges, neat.

Back and forth, back and forth,
We took each in turn through the garage
And found its place upon the others--
A snug, new horizontal order, ours--
Flat and firm, end to end, log by log,
Warming ourselves as we went.

Yes, we wished they were still trees,
Tall, leafed out, living, graceful. Whole.
But we were grateful for their sacrifice
To give us purpose, to help us bring
Some warmth to our world.