I took the chains down to the hardware store
to have them sharpened on the grinding wheel.
It was the day before the day of rest, so I worked
some more when I returned, gathering branches
into a pile, starting a fire, tending the flames
until they disappeared at dawn and I went inside
to lie with her, the Queen of Trees who had waited
for me throughout the night, breathing her lullaby
now beneath the quilt, emitting the sweet
eternal scent of the future against my stench,
leading me with her beauty alone into the dark
where I dreamed of the trees I felled still falling
in that slow intractable way they fall at first,
then faster in their swift descent that takes forever
it seems despite their speed since in the time
between the second the tree begins to fall
and the moment it hits the ground, a man has time
to write his epitaph on the stone inside his head
and lay some flowers as well on the mound that rises
up before him like a wave wherever he stands.