Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me <br />bears up like stone, <br />beneath some ritual I see: <br />the blinding axe <br />swings up, holds, <br />that moment of its weightlessness <br />inscrutable <br />till I confirm the arm is mine; <br />I will it, grip, <br />feel moist the swelling handle, <br />the shudder rude, <br />the difference fallen. <br /> <br />Toward that chopping block <br />I carry in me woodthings— <br />infectious undergrowth <br />pretending upwards <br />through each stem and branch of me— <br />all so certain of themselves <br />they practice, like pains, <br />the craft of being. <br /> <br />They try to wrench away <br />before we reach that stump, <br />my woodthings and I, <br />they weakening <br />in its brightness, <br />in my luminous saying <br />"I must go, must go <br />to the chopping block." <br /> <br />They know the brutal business <br />of my thinking; <br />I know they have no charity nor memory <br />to return the way they came— <br />came not from wilderness, <br />nor forest, <br />nor living trees. <br /> <br />Their craft and strength I test— <br /> and mine— <br />at the chopping block.<br /><br />James A. Emanuel<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/false-notions-fears-and-other-things-of-wood/
