LOGS ON THE HEARTH

The fire advances along the log

Of the tree we felled,

Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck

Till its last hour of bearing knelled.

The fork that first my hand would reach

And then my foot

In climbings upward inch by inch, lies now

Sawn, sapless, darkening with soot.

Where the bark chars is where, one year,

It was pruned, and bled -

Then overgrew the wound. But now, at last,

Its growings all have stagnated.

My fellow-climber rises dim

From her chilly grave -

Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb,

Laughing, her young brown hand awave.