grubs in the wood

when the grubs go to sleep
in the rotten wood for the winter
do they meet in some other
dreamscape? do they tell stories
of wings & whales? maybe
they play games in which they pretend
to have legs. their translucent bodies
coiled like new letters, each in
their own private vein. the crumbling wood
once strong oaks & wild walnut.
now, giving in to the soil. i find the grubs
as i split the wood. each a finger of 
an old god. they do not wake at first.
then, startled by the frozen light, they twist.
i tell them i am sorry to have snapped open
their wandering time. i want to explain
to them that humans have, for the most part,
forgotten how to sleep. i remove them.
dry the wood on a rack above the stove. 
carry the grubs out to where the chickens 
are huddled together. i apologize, terribly
i might add, to the bugs before i deliver them
to their devourers. i tell them,
"i have been plucked from rotten wood before."
but i know it is never a comfort that 
your destroyer has suffered like you.
often it is actually worse. once, a police officer
knocked on the window of my car
i was sleeping in. he said, "i know what it is like
but you have to get out of here." it was so early.
the sun was eating handfuls of our hair. 
i drove until the car was made of wood. until
it was winter. until i was in a kind of a dreamscape. 
in the end though what do i know of their shattered
quiet dark. of what winter meant to them.
of the rot swaddling their bodies. the chickens
thank me. i go inside. throw the wood
on the late fire. soon the weather will turn
& other grubs will awaken. will they ask
where the others went or will they know?