After Grandpa died,
Granny chopped wood
for the woodstove herself
Even in snow
when the mornings froze
below zero,
she'd muffle up
and take the axe to winter
The cold cut her chafed, beautiful face
like wood splinters
puncturing the air
But she struck back
Each whack of the blade
shattering that cathedral quiet in the trees
The upper branches rang from her blows,
and the streams and rivers
where I fished the summers
took each chop to their black current
and hurled it down to the marshes
Granny carried the wood in her arms
as she had carried children
and fish from Newfoundland waters
and grandchildren
and potatoes from her field
and great grandchildren
and berries plucked out of the woods
that bulged red with them in August
At my birth she gave me breath to live,
and I have never stopped
breathing or loving her heart in mine
That winter, the fire she gave to wood
would light her valley days, and nights
when memories closed in a breath away
Then the breath she took and turned to end
the night's long dream and longer, longer waking
From Daybreak's Long Waking (Black Moss Press 1997)
