the stump

From my grandfather’s tin lunch pail

he fingered the stick of dynamite

taken from the mine and now out of sight,

ready to be lit and wail.

He selected his victim with care,

an ancient cathedral-like stump

with defaced roots and twisted rotting bumps;

he planned violently to tear

through the roots and fleshy dry bark

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with liquid fire, black bomb powder.

He waited impatiently to try his power.

The first silence was stark

as he struck the fuse, knowing that

his wife was at church and would not

stop his scheme; he couldn’t be caught.

Fire breathed, he drew back, sat

waiting for the flight of this tree’s

corpse, an explosive funeral,

an image both strange and visceral.

Powder shattered the breeze

when the dynamite blew it up,

the proud stump billowing toward

the lake where two fishermen, who swore

silently, threw enough

of themselves out of their old boat

to avoid strange death from above

as the plundered, airborne stump broke in rough

waves around the floaters.

They plunged back into their small craft,

not bothering to reel in their lines

as they paddled off with oars of white pine.

My grandfather just laughed.