Peeling varnish shows the grain
Annual rings like autumn rain
Copper nails and iron knees
Hold the shape of forgotten trees
Your fingers trace each rivet line
Where Pinus strobus sap once shined
[Pre-
Cambium sleeps beneath the bark
Waiting for the springtime spark
Dormant buds in node and notch
Holding growth in wooden watch
Ironwood hull hums low and slow
Beneath the coaster's steel shadow
Acer rubrum ribs still breathe
While maple leaves the air to weave
You row through air not water now
Betula pendula shows you how
Salix seats have shaped your weight
Flexible as winter fate
Fungal threads in silent speech
Mycelium networks teaching each
Lichen maps the starboard side
Crustose patches foliose pride
[Pre-
Cambium sleeps beneath the bark
Waiting for the springtime spark
Dormant buds in node and notch
Holding growth in wooden watch
Ironwood hull hums low and slow
Beneath the coaster's steel shadow
Acer rubrum ribs still breathe
While maple leaves the air to weave
You row through air not water now
Betula pendula shows you how
Cottonwood fluff drifts through the track
Populus seeds with no way back
Roots would search if given soil
But hull sits dry in autumn's oil Photosynthesis paused complete
Energy stored in heartwood sweet
Ironwood hull hums low and slow
Beneath the coaster's steel shadow
Acer rubrum ribs still breathe
While maple leaves the air to weave
You row through air not water now
Betula pendula shows you how
Tar and oakum seal the seams
Pinus resin in your dreams
Each plank a chapter each frame a verse
Written in the universe
You speak in latin soft and low
To wood that still remembers growth
Ironwood hull hums low and slow
Beneath the coaster's steel shadow
Acer rubrum ribs still breathe
While maple leaves the air to weave
You row through air not water now
Betula pendula shows you how
Winter comes with frost and ice
But heartwood holds its sacrifice
Spring will wake the sleeping grain
Sap will rise like tide again
You'll launch when ice gives way to thaw
Quercus keel obeys the law
Ironwood hull hums loud and proud
Beneath