It’s a small motion but shipped in
from a long way off. The log is always
local but the iron old. Lines in the grain
work against the classic pose—you either
cohabitate or battle the common prose. I’m neither
here nor there but greening in my way. The handle
is key—a woodcutter taught me that
in 1741—for the feel of it, looking for the way
in, unforced, keen. My handle is too straight so the line
leads me to compensate. The cut is radical sustainability
in the overcode. If the blade
turns, shift the shoulders with it. Branch incursions
are just other books waiting to be written. The wood
is prime mover and the snap sound is the event
horizon of language.
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4 comments:
super-nice rob. so glad we have these blags now. when you (as in i) are away and cold and no one, norther, they bring a connection.
Hey Rob -- nice poem. I see crazy wood, I see the axe high above your head, I see it coming down hard...the question I struggle with in my own poetry is: when is the extended metaphor too easy; at what point does the axe ricochet off and back at you?
Al Rempel
if a tree falls in the forest,
and rob budde's language isn't there,
whose line is it anyway?
comments part 2:
(aka fk's translation)
(incidentally told to me once
by a carpenter friend)
don't chop
let the axe drop
when the wood is ready.
if you force it
you get stuck
comments part 3:
rob budde is good wood.
xo
fk
that's $$ what frances sd first.
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