Dave Bonta's "Timber" is a tiny poem with a quiet, slightly unsettling idea: the material we build our lives from has no interest in our lives at all. The first lines picture wood as a thing apart, calmly untroubled by "the business of years," the busy human round of time, worry, and ambition. Wood, whether standing as trees or lying as cut boards, simply is what it is.
Then the poem turns. When people "come to build," they take that indifferent material and make it into "another temple to home and bed." The word "temple" is striking. It treats ordinary comforts, a place to live and sleep, as something almost sacred. The word "another" suggests this happens again and again, with every house.
The speaker sounds calm and reflective rather than angry or sad. There's a gentle irony in the contrast: we pour meaning into the wood, but it gives nothing back. The mood is hushed and contemplative, with a faint sense of humility about how small our concerns look beside something so patient.