Log Cabin
You know they were trees, and recently:
stripped down, interlaced like fingers,
four walls rising log by log.
Piled graying trunks await their turn,
straight like phone poles—no, like trees.
So easy to forget the origin of things.
We have planed boards, steel, pre-made
doors that close exactly. Someone rides
a lawnmower across the road, away.
Who is building this log cabin upward
from the dirt? More thistle inside,
Queen Anne’s lace at waist-high.
Bees tasting where the stove should go.
When the roof blocks out the light,
save four-foot door and window slit,
who will notice the elaborate
rippling where each branch was?
The doorframe oozes pitch.
Don’t paint this house, don’t finish it.
The wind stirs from behind me.
Green stalks sway inside the walls and out.
You know they were trees, and recently:
stripped down, interlaced like fingers,
four walls rising log by log.
Piled graying trunks await their turn,
straight like phone poles—no, like trees.
So easy to forget the origin of things.
We have planed boards, steel, pre-made
doors that close exactly. Someone rides
a lawnmower across the road, away.
Who is building this log cabin upward
from the dirt? More thistle inside,
Queen Anne’s lace at waist-high.
Bees tasting where the stove should go.
When the roof blocks out the light,
save four-foot door and window slit,
who will notice the elaborate
rippling where each branch was?
The doorframe oozes pitch.
Don’t paint this house, don’t finish it.
The wind stirs from behind me.
Green stalks sway inside the walls and out.