The Woodcutter, Pt. I

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Frankly Lost

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There is an absence of sound when you swing an axe the right way. 
It doesn't quite swish and it doesn’t really whistle, 
It merely moves in an arc before coming to strike the wood. 
but the movement between strokes produces no sound.
The absence of sound in the swing itself becomes almost a note of its own.
It's laced with the anticipation of the strike,
cored through with the strength of the swinger’s arms,
the cords of muscle feeling out a chord that cannot be heard by the ears. 
The rhythm established by the sound of swings and the absence between them becomes a natural beat.
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.
But the beat soldiers onward with staggering and swaggering rests nonetheless, axe blade biting deep into wood, the purpose for which it was made.
The poetic specifics of sound (and its absence) were not directly observed by the man cutting logs at this time. And they were logs this particular axe was cutting, and it was a man's hands holding the haft. Some part of him heard the familiar sounds of woodcutting, but not in the front of his mind. For, in fact, the front of his mind was not present in this moment.
The steady labor of putting axe to log is a motion that has been practiced by men, and many women too, for generations. It falls into our muscles like a familiar habit, our joints move into the patterns like a long remembered dance. 
Once the beat is established, the mind is no longer required. The soul takes over and it becomes a contest of your strength and willpower against the task at hand. It is challenge and meditation at the same time. It was this meditative state that this particular woodcutter was in now.

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