Getting in the Wood

The sour smell, blue stain, water squirts out round the wedge, Lifting quarters of rounds covered with ants, "a living glove of ants upon my hand" the poll of the sledge a bit peened over so the wedge springs off and tumbles ringing like high-pitched bells into the complex duff of twigs poison oak, bark, sawdust, shards of logs, And the sweat drips down. Smell of crushed ants. The lean and heave on the peavey that breaks free the last of a bucked three-foot round, it lies flat on smashed oaklings— Wedge and sledge, peavey and maul, little axe, canteen, piggyback can of saw-mix gas and oil for the chain, knapsack of files and goggles and rags, All to gather the dead and the down. the young men throw splits on the piles bodies hardening, learning the pace and the smell of tools from this delve in the winter death-topple of elderly oak. Four cords.