Ray Rasmussen

Family Tree

My chain saw has reduced the once graceful birch to a scatter of odd-shaped pieces spread across the lawn. I gather barrow after barrow, set them on the chopping block and ply the axe. On the largest round, I trace the rings back to the year we moved in, the year each daughter left, and the year of the divorce. The ring at the edge marks my mother’s death.

family gathering
the incinerator door
slides shut

This winter friends will join me for wine and poetry by a warming fire and I'll feed the white-bark wood, piece-by-piece into the fireplace. Tonight, it’s just me.

embers
the slow burn
of whiskey

Published in Modern Haiku, 41.1, winter-spring 2010