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Moving the Woodpile
- Southern Illinois University Press
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72 M O V I N G T H E W O O D P I L E I am rinsed in quiet living here in this cabin in the woods, and move the woodpile this September afternoon to make room for a clothesline between white pine and sugar maple. Clearing the skids of wood, I discover a white-footed mouse, who blinks, then bounds off through years of fallen leaves; a black salamander who wriggles deeper into bark mulch; wolf spiders who display, if not demand, their presence; stinkbugs who drive themselves in circles like bumper cars; and a leopard frog who jumps, then leaps, disturbing a swath of snakeskin rubbed off against the bark. I restack the wood on the skids, then chink in the splits. When the sky clouds over, and my sweat beads on the wood, it is filigreed with the gills of beige and white mushrooms. After I rake that spot of chipped bark and slivers, sunlight bolts between the leaves, and shines on cleared earth, then lights on the newly stacked wood. ...