Years Woven Into Wood

Don't people love things anymore?
a marble
toy truck
frying pan
an acorn?
The texture and grain of solid wood lovingly polished?

To polish wood takes time
patience
supple emery cloth
sensitivity to the give and take of wood.

The grain of wood is years back into time.

One time,
when i cut pine boards into shelves
and the pine i was cutting had such a fine grain,
must'a been that each piece of wood
(i counted it)
took a hundred years to grow.

I was cutting them for a cheap clothing shop
surely the shop would go under within a decade
and all would be scrapped!

This pine wood was once a house
that generations of pine buds had built.
Took 'em over a hundred years
of summer light
fall winds
winter sleep
and spring upgushing of sap.

Skin after skin of treebud
fibers shed each fall
woven into wood.