https://benshane.com/ https://www.patreon.com/benshane https://www.instagram.com/tinkerandthink Splitting Firewood on a Winter Afternoon by Ben Shane My father heaves an emerald ash log onto the chopping stump. He sets his stance wide and hefts the maul. His bare fists grip the cold helve and he swings an easy arc overhead and through the wood with a great crack like a baseball bat connecting clean. The halves fall into the snow and the yard is silent. After three more logs quartered my father’s breath matches the rasp of the snow beneath his boots. I ask to help. He gently selects a modest log of hedge and balances it on the stump. The face of the hedge is scarred from my past attempts. He does not hand me the maul. Again and again my father swings the maul and the maul thuds and flexes back like a stiff leaf spring. He leans the maul against the stump and seeks some integral fault among our shallow nicks. It’s there—just more than a shadow in the thick bark, but there. He steps back, breathes deep through his nose, fixes his eye, bounces the maul in his grip, swings it high, pulls his top hand down the helve for momentum and the rusted head of the maul sinks into the hedge, splinters wide its yellow viscera bursting with an odor of warm earth and roughened skin. My father stacks wood in my arms to carry indoors. In the smooth oak flames the halved hedge screams like breaking bones. First published here: https://poets.org/splitting-firewood-winter-afternoon Trying to teach myself more editing chops-- futzed around with creating a kind of VHS effect and other color correction fun in Davinci Resolve, with the goal of making this footage feel like its from a "simpler time," though the emotions of the poem are anything but simple.