The mailman dropped a letter in our box
for Mrs. Tovia Durkan who has not lived

at our address for forty four years
and is now buried in a small cemetery

surrounded by a black wrought
iron fence and glorious mums,

we are now the caretakers of
a letter sent to a Jewish widow

leaving us to feel responsible
to attend the Bat Mitzvah of

12-year-old Sophie Bravermann;
do we bring a gift?

She took the part
That broke her heart
And soon would take her life

But the pirouettes
Help her forget
She's dancing on a knife

There are thirty of us under a torn canopy
where the sound of wind blowing against canvas
assaults me as if I were being beaten. We will
soon ride into the hills and **** pine; to fell
the mighty as if the mighty are horseweeds.
Every callused man here  hates his weapon;
worn chainsaws that would make  better
tools to fight  wolves than walk the earth
clearing  stands of timber.
**************
Twelve of the original thirty loggers come back
for our 48th consecutive day; it rains as if  prehistoric
elk hover over the camp and **** a lake upon us.  Six men
go home within an hour because farming and stocking
cans of tuna at grocery stores appear more plausible than
wallowing in mire with saws, wedges, and chains with links
the size of your mother’s fist.  It is work and *******
every man  needs to eat or help feed a family.  The money
is not good, conditions like Czechoslovakia WW II.  

The six of us who remain, leave.