WHITE LOGS, OLD BONES

I built a fence of white barked logs, when hair was on my head,

“To keep the cows from wandering” or so my Grandpa said.

He hunted the best fencers out, tall against the sky,

I brought them to the earth below and made them long, not high.

He called the aspen “quakies” when a breeze would touch their leaves,

to me they were ivory pillars, they were solid sturdy trees.

But at summer’s end a great white snake lay frozen in the sun,

across the meadow and through the trees and back where it begun.

The logs showed little care for time, except the bark which shed

and hung in strands the first few years, as if just newly dead.

The snows would come, more summers go, and I could hardly see

the subtle changes in the wood, and changes wrought on me.

The bare wood tanned and turned to brown, a seasoned golden glow.

In time the logs, once straight and strong, were pulled into a bow.

The fence is cracked and splitting now, the brown wood turned to gray,

and yet it stands, and still it guards the place where it was laid.

The bark’s long gone atop my head, my bones seen better days.

Grandpa’s gone and rooted now, and I miss his rugged ways.

So I’ll stand firm and guard my spot, I have no mind to move.

You might call me stubborn, but my builder would approve.

S R Thorley, July 2005