Kindling

By Hilary Holladay

December 10, 1999

When you said your firewood

contained sunshine trapped for years

then released

in a grateful rushing exuberant burst

for hours afterward I was still

absorbing the cold bright air, a piled-up feeling -

hearing as the wood must hear

traffic sounds, animal snufflings, church letting out.

I was the silver maple you'd split

and saved, something for snow to fall on.

Moss grew on me as your footsteps hurried by.

I could not speak for the light aching in my throat.