I remember how we balanced on the springboardwith our axes, how the chips soaredpast Boonville and San Francisco.I remember the song of the misery whip,the taste of good steal, how our shoulderssoaked the sawdust.The clear acid of those morningscut through my bodywith the blood of alders and suckers,the osprey's salty claw.I remember dogging the endless chain, yellingat the mules, deep ruts through the ferns,smoke and groaning oxen.I was coiling rope and cranking the log jackas they crushed hillsides rolling into the river.I remember farmers who spent their whole livesfeeding smouldering stumps, their sheepbiting red clay.I stoked the steam donkey, leaping with sparksas the huge winch cable tightened on the drum,gutting the darkness. I dancedon the mill pond like Ahab(a banana slug clinging to my boot).I remember the gruntingas we canted the shaggy giants off the skidwayand drove in the dogs, dog teeth in my liveras we tore into the purple old growth: the Sinker,the Blue One. . . head saw singing,thunder of the carriage, slabs of gigantic meat,our eyes all bloodshot with happiness,the glowing mountain of bone mealagainst the blue sea—salt lips of a motherless morning.Cool odour of crushed fruit, sawdustlike a blast of wheatthrough my ribs.I remember the pit of silencewhen the smokestack guttered, the flat beltsand rollers whined still, and I saw the sunstanding in a pool of ravens.I remember the stain on the brakeman's suspenders,the harness of the white geldingon the loading dock, the beautiful slimeof the pilings, the small wrists of the mill-owner's wife.I remember the schooner ploughing inthrough unbelievable rocks and foam,the red grin of the captain.