Winter on the prairie
\nand my father welcomes patrons
\nto his garden of pines. Douglas Fir,
\nBlue Spruce, dusted in nature\u2019s sugar.
\nI carry the hacksaw, run my small
\nfingers along its serrated edge,
\nuntil it\u2019s time to sever labor from its root,
\na slaughter of needles, a stump left searching
\nfor its spine. I sit at the windowsill and wait
\nto sound the alarm of new cars, surveying
\nthe battalions of trees, the swingset left
\ndangling on the breeze. When they arrive, I run
\nthe length of the driveway towards them
\nlike the horses who sprint the fields
\nacross the fence, all windswept
\nand nostrils. I carry bowls of candy canes
\nto our neighbors, take one for myself,
\nmy mouth prickling from the rush of peppermint.
\nI drag felled trees from their rows, their branches
\nas thick as my bones, their smooth wound
\nsticky with the smell of sweet pine.
\nMy father lifts them on top of cars
\nas if they were tinsel, and I fasten myself
\nto his heels, my feet dwarfed by his prints,
\nWe cut trees until dusk, against that endless
\ninevitable grey, until my arms and elbows
\nsore from the good work. For every callus,
\na coin left under my pillow. My father
\ncurls into his quilts, and we listen, warm,
\nas the dogs quarrel with a deep, starless dark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Winter on the prairie and my father welcomes patrons to his garden of pines. Douglas Fir, Blue Spruce, dusted in nature\u2019s sugar. I carry the hacksaw, run my small fingers along its serrated edge, until it\u2019s time to sever labor from its root, a slaughter of needles, a stump left searching for its spine. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[69],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4qj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17105,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17007\/revisions\/17105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}