The Truth in the Grain

One cuts and leaves, one stays and learns,

One grows while one no longer burns.

The axe may dull, its purpose done,

But trees recall each setting sun.

The mind of steel forgets its past,

But wood records what couldn’t last.

Each blow absorbed, each whisper caught,

Stored deeper than the axe had thought.

Forgetting is the right of those,

Who never felt the way it froze.

But stillness hides what time collects,

And pain becomes what truth reflects.

No fury shown, no hate expressed,

Yet history does not forget.

The axe moved on, the tree stayed still,

Yet one remembers, one moves to kill.