A Sip of Poetry

This week's featured poem is " Woodpile #2" by R. D. Patrick, from The Stonehaven Poems (forthcoming spring 2010).

Woodpile #2

twenty-five blocks of wood today

and that's enough I'm fifty-nine

years old and sweating like a pig

although it's the middle of september

I'm up here on the porch now with my

corona so help me there's nothing

like a cold beer after two hours on

the woodpile and I'm smiling double

because I beat the rain by a skinny

minute although it's not a serious rain

it's more like a test of character to see

what I'll do and to show there are no

hard feelings when I'm finished here

I'll go piss off the end of the porch

just to get into the spirit of things

who could get mad at the rain

coming across the hills like that

with the sun chasing along behind

and that last block of wood dry beech

so beautiful and clear it's a shame

to burn it I should hang it on the wall

beside the sunflower with the bee

dancing into it like shakespeare

it's a gift every flash of light

every crack of the axe I swear

it was all I could do to stay on my feet

to stagger delirious up the hill to my pen

and paper before I fell completely into ruin