Today's poem is by Jeff Burt

I Am Old and It's November
       

I burn the leftover triangles of fir
from making stairs to a deck
and the few, lean outcast branches
of oak that beetles and disease lopped off.
The fir growls and spits out sap like a wild cur
while the oak barely musters a flicker.
I poke a branch with a stick,
hoping to provoke it into joining
but it stays reluctant,
like the new kid at school
on the outside of a happy ring.

I squint through smoke, strike
the silver tomahawk into a rotting stump.
It hits a knot and kicks back
just missing my right ear,
sings like a tuning fork,
forearm like a pulsating circuit
for the wood's last electric moment.

Again, old oak, without asking,
you have taught me.
Let me go out singing.
Before ash, let me ring.

Copyright © 2024 Jeff Burt All rights reserved
from Little Popple River
Red Wolf Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission