In honor of the resurrection (or Franken-birth, customer choice) of the mind attic: a poem.
In Sandy’s shadow: one for Earl Miller
I was thinking on
the ride home from
work on Friday about
the day after Superstorm
Sandy and the giant
oak tree felled across
the complete, wide breadth
of Northville Turnpike by her
stiff tropical gale
A diligent crew was
slicing the felled
monster into man or
machine manageable
pieces.
A diligent crew who (despite
their best efforts and with
equipment far
superior to the old
blue Homelites we employed
in the tired woodlot up off
Hillman Road) managed
to repeatedly bind and stall their
new fangled, high tech
high horsepower Swedish saws in
the deciduous beast’s tangled,
pinched and torqued limbs.
Son of a bitch!
In that moment of fleeting
remembrance across four and
fifteen and thirty five years, I
missed you more
than silence.
I had no one to share an advisory whisper
gained through our years of harvesting felled
hardwoods for the furnace:
“I don’t think I would cut that limb…” an advisory
cut abruptly short, proven fact as the high powered, high
tech Swedish saw bound and stalled in another tangled,
pinched, torqued limb. Son of a bitch!
In that moment of fleeting
remembrance across four and
fifteen and thirty five years, I
missed you more
than silence.
I had no one to share a knowing, chuckling
conclusion, “I’m surprised these guys know which end
of them fancy Swedish saws is for holdin’ and which
end is for cuttin’”
THE MIND ATTIC 