The Man with the Axe lopped off the branches and piled the trimmed logs to cure. Next year each log from the stack would be pressed to the buzzsaw, transformed into pieces of wood, tossed on the pyramid pile. In the third year his axe would split the blocks to be fed to the fire. He would carry them in his arms to the woodbox behind the kitchen stove.
The Man with the Axe had a short middle finger from when he was the younger son who held the block instead of the handle. His brother's laughter forever unforgiven. The road to Grandma's house was still a blind road, with wild things lurking, he warned us, in the bushes close to the edge. "When you stop to pick the flowers, be careful," was all he ever said.
The Man with the Axe would butcher a chicken for every birthday supper. He dropped the blunt end of his axe to the skull of the setter not quite killed by the wheels, to the neck of the bullcalf born with two heads. With his axe he chopped the roots binding the earth in the graves he was digging, or whittled the base of the Christmas tree to help it drink. And cut a hole in the iced water so each of his cows could take her turn at the trough.
The Man with the Axe had been away to war and had seen the effects of hate. The Man with the Axe preferred to farm where things died for a good reason. Where the poplar bluff sheltered and warmed the house. And the man provided for the creatures in his care. Where even after it seemed too late, the girl could be freed from the belly of the wolf, and you couldn't even see her scars.
Reprinted from my Circles of Light. In memory of Donald Albert Bridgeman. June 24, 1920 to May 16, 1984. Father's Day. June 17.
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