The steady labor of putting axe to log is a motion that has been practiced by men, and many women too, for generations.
For, in fact, the front of his mind was not present in this moment. Some part of him heard the familiar sounds of woodcutting, but not in the front of his mind. And they were logs this particular axe was cutting, and it was a man's hands holding the haft. The poetic specifics of sound (and its absence) were not directly observed by the man cutting logs at this time. Irregular and yet continuous, with odd syncopations arising from moments to move a new log into place or to correct a piece that has fell.īut the beat soldiers onward with staggering and swaggering rests nonetheless, axe blade biting deep into wood, the purpose for which it was made. The rhythm established by the sound of swings and the absence between them becomes a natural beat. The cords of muscle feeling out a chord that cannot be heard by the ears. It's laced with the anticipation of the strike,Ĭored through with the strength of the swinger’s arms, The absence of sound in the swing itself becomes almost a note of its own.
It merely moves in an arc before coming to strike the wood.īut the movement between strokes produces no sound.
It doesn't quite swish and it doesn’t really whistle, There is an absence of sound when you swing an axe the right way.