Heartwood
Wood is the tree’s
remembering:
the band-saw brings to light
wide rings recollecting sunshine
beside thin shivers, traces of
cold.
In the grain of timber every line’s a year
and I love the stroke and the feel of it,
the rough-sawn exterior
smoothed to pebble-sheen
as it spins against the blade,
and the big tube hoovering away
all my sawdust
until all that is left is dignity.