Talisman

it was nothing
but a chunk of wood
no bigger than a cell phone.
turning it in my hand
it had clearly been baked
by more than a century
of Arkansas river bottom suns.

my knife carved it from the remains
of my great grandfather's pole barn.
half way up its length
was the mark of an axe slash.

my dad's dad's dad left that mark
back in the 1870's
when he came to this remote
river edge, lifetime's ago.

i freed the axe slash
from among its brother's
without much thought.
it was as if it simply appeared
in my palm.

that insignificant piece of wood
was my only connection to the man.

how transient is the past!
always moving further away
like the stream surging beyond 
the remains of that old pole barn
the river always similar but never the same.
some sage remarked that
you never step in the same river twice.

i kept that tangible link
to my intangible past
for more than twenty years
until it failed to make
my last move.

what might my great grandson
one day slice from my leavings?
some yellowed script
from a passage i wrote
but never liked?

better i should offer him
the slashing from a hickory stump
as my talisman to time.