under damp layers of pine needle
still-hard limbs and twigs
tangled as they lay.
two sixteen foot good butt logs took
all the rest, top, left

and this from logging twenty years ago
(figured from core-ring reading on a tree
still stands, hard by a stump)
they didn’t pile the slash and burn then—

fire hazard, every summer day.

it was the logger's cost
at lumber’s going rate then

now burn the tangles dowsing
pokey heaps with diesel oil.
paying the price somebody didn’t pay.