Paradise Furnace (2015 - present)

I live in a logging town. It’s imperfect and honest.  Many people are judged as less. The wrong people are being criticized. Is logging wrong? That is a complicated question.  This past year, I built my house out of wood.

I was the odor of the woodpile
you added to cord after cord, the place

where you split kindling and wept.
I shuffle through the old streets singing

the psalms of the poor. When I kneel
in prayer – one leg in the Millicoma,

one leg in the millpond – I bring my hands
together and join the dust in your room

with the dust of stars, the grain of timber,

the burls in the hearts of men.

-When the Spirit Comes to Him as the Voice of Morning Light, by Michael McGriff