enjoy this writing from Matthew Guzman in the cc&d free 2012 PDF file chapbook: Interstice (click on the front cover image or the title text to download the free PDF file)				You can also order this as a 2012 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Interstice

Order this writing in the book the Mission (chapbooks edition) cc&d 2012 collection book		get the 206 page May - August 2012cc&d magazine chapbook (and occasional issue wriitng and art collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Taking Out Stumps

Matthew Guzman

There, dug deep from hundreds of
years, an old oak stump.
It gave me such an epic battle,
Achilles versus Hector,
my aging father standing at my side.

I plunged the axe with all
the power he had passed onto me.
Lunge, after fierce lunge, my steady
opponent looking unscathed,
almost laughing with silence.
The battle carried on through many hours,
my father tirelessly by my side.

Victory! One final heave
and my worthy rival split
in two.
My chest beating the train’s heavy song,
salt dripping into my eyes.

“You did it!”my father said, patting
me on the shoulder. We smiled – his
face drooping with age, my face flushed
and wet from battle.

Tomorrow, my father will be lying dead on
the ground, only a few yards from
this very spot.
Sleeping, an ocean of claret
staining a shadow once cast by a three-
hundred-year-old oak.

Sitting by a hole left in the ground,
the wind suddenly picks up –
I hear his voice, feel his hand on my back,
leading me
through the empty spaces
we create.

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