The wood man delivers me green firewood, wood I plan to burn next year, God willing. He brings bees, too, or maybe the creatures simply appear magically from my gardens or trees, hovering on this sweet-smelling-of-sap pile. The day’s flawlessly sunny, and we stand beside the wood and butterfly bush my daughter bought me, talking. His truck is 40 years old, older than him, and he yarns on from there, telling me about his sugarbush and the taps he leases and how much syrup he made last year and the year before. A former sugar maker myself, we talk the talk about reverse osmosis and arches and how he nearly but not quite burned his front pans last year. We talk ropy sap. We talk how long it takes to fill a 40 gallon drum.

I write him a check for a week’s worth of my wages. He heads out, still laughing, leaning out his window, telling me his wife expects him home for lunch.

When he’s gone, I lift a piece of maple, heft its weight, breathe in its smell. This wood man’s given me good weight.