Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash
Ice-shackled trees bend to the crusty ground. A giant hemlock, tall as a church spire, thick as a tractor tire stretches across our gravel road. Russ and Jake Simon cut through the massive trunk, base to top, sixteen-inch sections for firewood. Their muscular arms and work ethic, heavy logging saws, grease-stained overalls.
I limb the tree, struggling to stay ahead of them. We nod to each other when necessary. Talk is impossible: our two-stroke engines howl, chains laboring through the dense green wood. Clouds of oiled smoke, sawdust. Eddie Ahlmquist, thumbs under suspenders, looks on. You’ll get more conversation from a pair of Holsteins, but they sure do get the job done, don’t they? Thin and breathless, seed cap backward, grizzled beard, cigarette. He eyes my new saw. Shame you have to dirty up this thing. Watch you don’t cut your head off, now. I finish the limbing and haul brush to the ditch.
All afternoon the drone of the Simon’s two-ton splitter. The hydraulic blade cracks chainsaw chunks. Bucket-loads of splits divided equally among four trailers, Eddie’s old Ford tractor moving back and forth from the waiting pile. Sawing, splitting, loading, unloading.
Later, four neighbors stand together, rub blisters over burning brush and shared cords of wood-gold for next winter. The Simons chaw-and-spit. Eddie smiles. You ain’t no head of cabbage, son. I guess you’ll do.
Fredric Hildebrand is the author of “A Glint of Light” (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and “Northern Portrait” (Kelsay Books, 2020). His poems have most recently appeared in, or are forthcoming, from Loud Coffee Press, The MacGuffin, Verse-Virtual, Trouvaille Review, Blood Tree Literature, and Blue Heron Review. He lives in Neenah, WI, and began writing poetry after retiring from medical practice. When not reading or writing, he plays acoustic guitar and explores the Northwoods with his wife and two Labrador retrievers.