In the summer of 2006 at Omega, I got to work with poet Mark Kuhar. 

After a week of building rustic, he shared these poems:

poems from distorted wood (1-5)

1.
we do not work with wood
the wood instead calls us
to do its bidding, a ritual
of transformation, the transition
from life to art. i introduce
a piece of birch to a branch
of maple, a coupling designed
to facilitate a resurrection --
i am just a tool being used
in nature's fine rebellion
in the subtle pull of a full august moon

2.
i speak the language of branch
and bark, interpret the musical notes
contained in wood grain, these
abandoned sticks become remade
in their own distorted image
released to interactive visions
connected to each other like
arms and legs (limbs) that
wave in rhythm (and timbre)
all the way freeform to home

3.
i am the keeper of the oak bones
a skull of flowers and trust, where
leaves heave a halo of sawdust
and linseed oil, where light
refracts into pine tar and pitch,
the oval crosscut, a borehole
to keep company with wormwood
and termite blood, this skeleton
of tree life, i remember the shadows
of dead leaves, a cycle of beautiful ages

4.
there is nothing
i can teach nature
navigating its fine curves
and broad trunk
the way a bird
rides current
of sky and wind

5.
give a man
some dry wood
and he learns to create
for a day,
make a man
the guest of a forest
and he learns to wait
for its towering dreams

 --mark s kuhar www.deepcleveland.com