BREAKING WOOD I was breaking wood in the shed As dark fell. The wind gusted And slammed the door, pitching Me into such blackness that I Missed my stroke and struck A spark from the floor. It brought back my father Chopping wood in autumn, And with it came the smell Of leaf-mould, the hinted Flights of late swallows, The shrivelled gold Of wasps in the notches Of wide-spoked webs. Memories Stilled me so long it was dark Before I rose to gather the sticks. A sigh of resin and I felt The stirring of seeds of regret As I tumbled the white wood Into the rumbling box And heard the wind whip On the trees and bend into A straight stream of lament At the razoned edge of the wall. White fall of wood and blue-red Leaping spark, pitch black Blow of wind, dark inks Of still and moving waters, The seasonable deaths of summers, The unseasonable deaths of fathers ... Should I have struck with the axe Near darkness, called the spark >From his deep energies of enrichment And decay? Still, in this tangled weather I must break sticks for warmth And split the flinty wind For its interior noises. Soon the red honeycomb of fire Will sting the poker bright Up half its length. Soon The fume of wood upon the air Will take my feeling to the night. -- Seamus DEANE