Preparing for Another Season/ poem by Matthew J. Spireng

						
It’s the first day of spring and I’ve been cutting
wild roses and barberry around large ash trees
dying from an infestation of emerald ash borers
that are killing all the ash. It’s preparation

for summer, when I’ll be harvesting trees
for firewood, though some are already
too far gone to be used even for that.
I’ve too many on my woodlot to salvage

them all, but I’ll cut as many as I can.
I hate to see them wasted, hate more
to see them dying, hold out hope
some will survive, the species rebound

and flourish again. Yesterday the last
male northern white rhinoceros died
and, while two females survive, they’re
hoping genetic material from the male

will save the subspecies. I don’t know
which has more of a chance, white ash
or the northern white rhinoceros, but
I’m far removed from the rhinos, dealing

with what is near. If the weather holds
tomorrow, I’ll trim more wild roses
and barberry from around a dying ash
with a three-foot trunk. It’s older, for sure,

than the last male white rhino, and as yet
isn’t the last white ash, so I’m not
tearing up, as I did today when I heard
about the male rhino. 

The least I can do to honor the elder ash
that are dying on my land is to dry and burn
them, heat my house until all that is left 
in the stove is white ash.

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Matthew J. Spireng is a frequent contributor to Lightwood. You can read additional poems by him and a review of one of his books by scrolling to our Search button and entering his name.

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Matthew J. Spireng’s 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize-winning book Good Work was published in 2020 by Evening Street Press.  An 11-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of two other full-length poetry books, What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award, and five chapbooks. He was the winner of The MacGuffin’s 23rd Annual Poet Hunt Contest in 2018 and the 2015 Common Ground Review poetry contest. Website: matthewjspireng.com.