POETRY SPOT

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Douglas Malloch (1877 – 1938) was an American poet and short-story writer known as a "Lumberman's poet". Malloch was born in Muskegon, Michigan which was known as a centre of the lumbering industry. He grew up amidst the forest, logging camps, sawmills and lumber yards and became known for his simple poems which often depict different ways life can be lived and how the most fulfilling lives come to be.

The following narrative poem is almost like a poetic Aesop’s Fable, with themes of love, regret, sorrow, forgiveness and impermanence.

(A Norway is a Norway spruce, a large, fast-growing evergreen coniferous tree growing 35–55 m (115–180 ft) tall and with a trunk diameter of 1 to 1.5 m. The species used as the main Christmas tree in several countries around the world.)

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The Widow-Maker

    Douglas Malloch

A loose limb hangs upon a pine three log-lengths from the ground,

A norway tumbles with a whine and shakes the woods around.

The loose limb plunges from its place and zigzags down below;

And Jack is lying on his face—there's red upon the snow.

They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his horny hands;

They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands;

They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder whence he came,

And build a monument of rocks without a date or name.

"He got a letter, that I know." "I wonder where it is."

"I heard him speak not long ago about a wife of his."

"Employment agent shipped him up he didn't have a cent."

"He was a most peculiar pup." "He was a gloomy gent."

And so they'll talk around the fire a little longer yet;

But even idle tongues will tire, and even men forget.

A season passes, and a year. "Why, yes, now thinkin' back,

A widow-maker hit him here. We used to call him Jack."

And far away, 'mid city streets Jack staggers down no more,

A heart, a woman's, madly beats, each knock upon the door.

She's back with mother in the flat. She thought she wouldn't care.

Why does she always jump like that, each step upon the stair?

"For anger burns so quick a flame the year that you are wed.

I said some things just as they came I never should have said.

It takes a little time, I guess, the married life to live—

To want your way a little less, to suffer and forgive."

They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his horny hands;

They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands;

They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder whence he came,

And build a monument of rocks without a date or name.