My woodpile
I saw it the moment I stepped into the yard. The covered pile of wood in the backyard confirmed this place would be my first home.
The pile was about 75 by 25 by 8.
I don’t know how many cords it was, but it was a lot of wood.
A sixty-forty split of Douglas fir and Western red cedar;
the firewood came from the trees on my new property.
The trees fell to make room for the cabin,
and the good ones were used to build it;
the remainder put aside to be dealt with later.
On a perfect day in late July, a few months after I moved into my new home,
I decided to start chopping the wood.
Alone amongst the trees,
I took the first swing with the old axe I’d found
in the shed behind the cabin.
The blade lodged -
the wood didn’t split.
I tried again,
but with anger.
Yes.
Striking with anger
felt good.
And even better
when
I screamed.
Wood
Swing
Strike
Scream
Trance-like rhythm.
Every piece of wood
a memory.
Each strike split my heart open –
again.
I screamed up to the trees,
phrases, curses, profanities,
names.
The memories were too real.
I was in it all again.
But this time,
I
took control.
Some pieces of wood were
rotten and termite-infested,
the larvae still moving deep inside.
Others, when hit with my axe, turned to dust.
Some smelled so pure
they brought me down from my rage,
and I could turn away
-
for a moment.
Some I pulled apart with my hands.
Others were impenetrable—
knots,
deep tangled secrets
that I could only split around.
Or not at all.
Trauma.
The trees.
I chopped wood for hours on that perfect day in late July.
It felt like thirty minutes.
When I decided I was done,
I walked away.
A few hours later, I returned.
Raw
but
awake.
Gently, I picked up each piece of split wood,
each memory,
and carried it
to the back of the covered wood pile
–
the side hidden by trees.
Private and
protected.
I wanted them kept safe from harm,
so I could burn them -
triumphantly.
My resolved memories
fueled the flames
that kept my cat and me warm;
they heated food that gave us sustenance.
And then
they turned
to ash.
That first pile of wood I split on that perfect day in late July was
the first split into myself.
A Self, close to half a century old -
knotted branches,
lichen and moss,
cracks,
and stories.
But in the centre, beneath the drying bark,
the first ring—the beginning,
prana.
My small wood stove
The woodpile
