I’m thinking this blog could also be a chance for me to post some writing as part of the slice of life project. Here’s a poem I wrote about a small moment.

wood stack

a stack of split oak squats
between two trees
at the edge of the woods.

two months ago
I felled three trees,
split the sections

into quarters
hopeful that
two years from now

they will glow brightly
in the wood stove
in the basement.

around the stack’s base,
faded oak leaves drift
over frozen ground —

lingering between
slabs of wood
built from thin air

my long-dead grandfather
exhaled when
he was a boy.

squatting next to
the stack,
I rub the rings

of grandfather’s life
with my thumb,
and learn that

a person’s life extends
deeper beneath the bark
than I realized.

–Steve Peterson