Stacking Wood With Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman leans against the woodshed gazing long,
Panama hat cocked daringly to one side, displaying his full poetic length, I sigh! That muse-inspired half-grin that spreads across the America of his face, I pause to admire the egalitarian vision before me. But the woodpile calls.
Walt Whitman says the snow will soon fly as back and forth I trod selecting each individual log for its cut, color, texture, ease of use, and burn potential. Stacked neatly there outside the kitchen door row upon row, Walt Whitman, with raised brow, finger-combs his grizzled beard, and nods in approval.
Searing summer heat yields to the glory of Indian summer. Beads of purifying sweat skitter down my forehead as the stack reaches higher and higher. Walt Whitman yalps and celebrates my pioneer spirit! Gray beard flying, arms outstretched, he spins in circles with wild abandon in the green and golden field of tall summer grasses.
Soon my body pleads like a child for one more day. I mutter soft-spoken promises to revisit the woodpile again. Walt Whitman concedes that Rome wasn’t built in a day And invites my soul to loaf.
Lying in the crook of his elbow, his blue-velvet voice quenches my thirst. The sonorous nightingale warbles verse upon verse of “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” decreeing our oneness with everything.