The Wood Pile

 The Wood Pile

Frost said, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

I say wood piles do the same.

We have one by the road.

And met good neighbors out there as well.

It’s a story of bugs.

Moved here during the pandemic last year.

That bug kept us at a distance,

Isolated for the most part from our neighbors.

Then we took two trees down,

Two trees infected by another bug,

A real gem, the emerald ash borer,

Half-inch long with the power to take-out 100 foot trees.

And, as it happened, the power to bring neighbors together,

Together around the woodpile.

Some wanted firewood they’d burn right away,

So’s not to spread the bug.

As they say, it’s the best firewood:

“Ash wood wet, and ash wood dry, a king shall warm his slippers by.”

Others, woodworkers, wanted to make table tops of the big, round slices.

Got to hear their stories, most living here many years, cooped-up by covid too long.

Local historians of what’s really important in people’s lives, connections with others.

Looking forward to further the flame of friendship around a backyard fire,

When one bug is past and gone, and with firewood compliments of another.