In The Fullness of Time ...
Nov 22 2013


When it came last fall
the load of fresh-cut birch
had the dull thud
of wet wood.
The spicy smell
of that thin brown layer
beneath the silver bark,
where dark velvet
will dry to dun,
stiff sheets, come clean away
turn crumbly.

The load seasoned under cover,
a damp spring, hot summer
redolent of birch.
And in the fullness of time
will burn well,
the hot fire, clear flame
of seasoned wood.
Rough length, 16 inches

cleanly split.

In the fullness of time
a sturdy tree has grown.
Over 50 years
slowly absorbing the heat of the sun,
captured
in its fibre, its cells
its structure.
Then released, all at once,
for a few short hours
in an inferno of heat and light.
The natural state of disorder
restored,
the levelling force
we rage against
all our lives.

My wood-stove blazes,
its hypnotic flame

soothing heat.
And on the wall behind, my shadow flickers
larger than life.
My first half century
also done,
simmering steadily
at body temperature,
imperceptibly ebbing
to my certain end.

When, in the fullness of time
I will be buried
at the base of a tree,

a slender sapling

of aspen, or birch

in hard thin soil.

Which grow slowly, here
send their roots deep,

extract what they can

from marginal land

so far north.

When, in the fullness of time
I will blaze fiercely
if brief.
As if time
were ever complete.