The tool shed at Klinger Lake cottage
was stacked to the ceiling with hardwood.
One side was split, for the fireplace;
the other held seasoning tree trunks.
My Grand-Dad the Doctor died slowly
in circulatory distress. By
chopping wood he chased the ice
away one more cold winter.
The year he closed his practice,
he summoned me into the den
to speak of death. I bolted
in fear at the keen axe of truth.
I heard how he withered to sawdust;
how the mind left his body behind
invaded by tubes and machinery in
the hospital he helped to build.
I was hundreds of miles away then,
chopping logs for a home of my own.
I have never returned to that cottage
I imagine the tool shed is empty.