Clearing Of The Land
Harumph! barks the saw
at the top of the slope
bar-oil mist and two-cycle smoke
coats the sinus, the lungs, the tongue
Below lie the fallen, the hung up,
split up, stood up, jack-
strawed bodies of prime
hemlock and pine
Men seek order as they age
compressed in their spines
and in their politics
avoiding neighbors and wives
culling out the troubling bits
sawing off certain friends
who no longer fit
the worn
the ungrateful
the distant
Send them on down the chute
or haul away overhead
with cable and winch
then truck to the mill
the disloyal, demanding,
those beyond reach
then once off the rollers
stack ready to ship
Silent fall the big blades
the old men out of work
these sawyers by trade
on porches across
Western states
The mills are long shut
yet the hands are still lit
with the scent of pitch
from big fir
newly cut
Harumph! barks the saw
at the top of the slope
bar-oil mist and two-cycle smoke
coats the sinus, the lungs, the tongue
Below lie the fallen, the hung up,
split up, stood up, jack-
strawed bodies of prime
hemlock and pine
Men seek order as they age
compressed in their spines
and in their politics
avoiding neighbors and wives
culling out the troubling bits
sawing off certain friends
who no longer fit
the worn
the ungrateful
the distant
Send them on down the chute
or haul away overhead
with cable and winch
then truck to the mill
the disloyal, demanding,
those beyond reach
then once off the rollers
stack ready to ship
Silent fall the big blades
the old men out of work
these sawyers by trade
on porches across
Western states
The mills are long shut
yet the hands are still lit
with the scent of pitch
from big fir
newly cut