Pine Log on the Gunflint

by Luke Hinrichs
 
Lying in four feet of snow,
cleanly sawn and silent,
with wolf tracks leading up

to its scabrous skin,
rivulets of golden sap
frozen in its chinks,

is a severed white pine.
One hundred thirty-three
wind-shaken rings mark its rising

to magnificence, its thunderous fall
into the drift.

© 2005 by Luke Hinrichs. All rights reserved.

Luke Hinrichs was born and raised in Minnesota, later attending Augsburg College and the University of St. Thomas, earning his B.A. and M.A. in English. Currently he works full time as a fiction editor for a publishing house in Minneapolis.