by Sarah B. Cahalan
I don’t know much of woodwork
but typically
Flitches of veneers won’t coalesce
into a tree
They’re sliced irreversibly to single
strips of self
Cross-sections of the years it took
to beech, to maple
The made thing marks the limits
of material
But stranger things have happened:
Daphne, Thisbe
In France, a shepherd lost a Eucharistic wafer
in an evergreen
Years later, an ax revealed a wooden
baby
A wooden crown, smooth cheeks,
picture of health
::
Sarah B. Cahalan (she/her) writes about natural history, hope/grief/faith, the layers of places and how those correspond with our own layers as people moving through time and place. She has current or forthcoming poems in Dark Mountain, Image, Trampoline, and others. Sarah is from Massachusetts and is currently based in Dayton, Ohio (USA).
Image: engin akyurt
ID: rough wood grain.
Psaltery & Lyre 