An illegible forest
of drunken words branch
across Carter's leafy pages.
These woody accounts stand
rooted on the dusty table,
disheveled, worn by winters
of whiskey-laced neglect.

Smudgy fact and figures
gnarl the paper's worth,
rings of debt show their nature.
Hand-loggers names creak
from their core, remembered
for their financial pulp.

Entangled in this greedy fibre
I chop the books with axe-head
intellect, dull with each strike
until lumbering eyes wander
to my bunk where a canopy
of effortless slumber waits.
 

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about the poem:
The poem Logging the Books is the sixth poem in a series exploring the culture of pioneer loggers. Martin Allerdale Grainger wrote Woodsmen of the West in 1908. He refused to sentimentalize the Canadian West. It is a fascinating chronicle of conflicting personalities, and the genius of British Columbia hand-loggers, the culture of camp life, and the intrigues and corruption of the lumber business at the turn of the century.  

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about the author:
I'm currently an English/Creative Writing student at Malaspina U/C, Nanaimo, BC, Canada. I have work published in magazines and ezines including Forget Magazine, Voice, The Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, The Ballarat Review, and Leaf Press. I have two chapbooks of poetry, Seasons, and Hidden Among the Pine. I have recently been awarded the 2004 top achievement award by the Nanaimo Arts Council.  

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