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| Approaching the end of another heating season |
No shortage of firewood of late,
thanks to the emerald ash borer
and to the roar of the wind and the chainsaw,
to the old wheelbarrow, and the long-handled maul,
the stove seldom cold from October to May.
When a man cuts his own fuel
adding a split to the fire takes him back,
back to the woods, to where the tree fell,
to where the wild mandrake now rises,
the rise and the fall, the rise and the fall,
takes him back to his own rise and fall,
a natural enough progression
on a living planet,
despite the best of intentions.
—Title from the Pinsky poem, "Immortal Longings."
