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Spring+Summer 2009
Fall+Winter 2008
SUMMER 2008
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DENA TAYLOR
Fire Season

My brother and I do this
for her, our mother
He lifts the split wood
into the wheelbarrow
I stack it in the shed
leaving no interspatial holes
She sits among the trees
in a white plastic chair
and talks to us of our father
while my daughter helps us
handing me the logs one by one
our gloved hands working together

Later we bring more chairs
admire our work, praise his woodshed
We talk carefully, lovingly about him
and sometimes we laugh
The hole of his absence hurts us all

Not long ago on the other side
of the big redwood where we sit
we put his ashes in the ground
near those of his mother
poured Old Taylor whiskey
slowly over the top
then drank the rest ourselves
The time since he died
is full of things I want to tell him


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