The Charcoal Burner

It's that dry wind I dread most ...
a rustle just enough ...

after hours spent stacking coppiced wands on end,
I shape a table of ash and elder,
round and solid enough for a king.
Shovelled silt smothers its moorland cloth,
red heat spreads from glowing coals
dropped into the mottie hole;
fibres firing so gently, sap evaporates
through damp turf, between sammel grains,
its scented wetness drifting in smoke.

I wish I could bask this balmy evening,
not watch for weather.
Years growing, cutting, waiting,
they weigh the air - ten tons for each one.

Flatts slug along the Leven and into the wharf
where women, spelk baskets on their backs,
trudge bloody mud through bankside middens
up to the Backbarrow road.
Packhorses wait, hobble to the bloomery
where my coled timbers flare to white

... but cinders won't fuse metal, sizzle damp earth,
Hackett Forge will stand empty if I don't judge the time just right ...

these nights I hardly sleep for fear
of flicking leaves, drips on wood
(though God knows, logs will dry)
but if that summer breeze blows through,
all those years of rain, sweat, splinters,
the whole damn thing turns to ash.