I was so happy when we got that stove

it had been a good fifteen years since I’d spent a winter warming my coat before going out

or dropping a hot stone at the bottom of the bed before getting in

basking in the radiant heat emanating from the heart of the room

Somehow I’d forgotten the part where you’re up at o dark thirty in your skivies pulling logs out from under a snow capped tarp

or the dust

the dust that flies when the sun sparkles off a snow laced morning

And the stacking and chopping and stoking.

He stopped stoking the fire when I asked him not to shove the coals to the back of the stove when loading the log

to notice the lines in each log or to lay the ash beneath the oak

That was early on

Knotty wood sizzled and the heavier they were the cooler the burn

I kept stoking it Sometimes you meet the trees in whole new ways from log to log

when you are the only one thanking every piece as you keep the family warm for the winter

I know he misses that stove as much as I do but for very different reasons

the value to me is in every scar burned into my hands and in the callous that remains

in every midnight stoke to the sound of guitar coming down from upstairs

the value lies in knowing it is warming our friends’ space now and in every muscle he tore keeping it in the family

i know the tears in those muscles and I cherish every one

if i had carried all half a ton of it not just into my home but up  mountainsides and back down

perhaps i know it’s true value

It’s right back where it belongs