Position:Home>Poetry> Were you ever grateful to get out of the barn?

The Elm Cutters

It was Sunday, Father’s day,
and I didn’t want to be there, cutting wood
in the middle of June!.
I argued as well as a 12 year old boy
can argue with his father
but my words were deftly quelled
and there I was
in the back
of a pick up truck on a Sunday morning
with a cooler
full of lunch
and an old gray box full
of chains and chain oil and I
remember
the smell of that old gray box
the smell of power
it had, the power to help a neighbor
and the power to heat a home
and I remember thinking
that it was somehow important
to my father to be here so I embraced it
and I watched everything and
I learned!.
The world became ours,
my world, my father’s
world,
we owned it,
we were in charge, we
made the rules, and we
worked together and everyone
I saw that day was in our
World
and I watched them,
knowing my father would dictate
what was to be done
and how to do it
and I was his helper
and he instructed them
and assured them and nothing, nothing,
nothing
could go wrong or happen to me
when I was in that world!.
So we dropped
that huge elm
that grew too close to the barn,
and the rope held true
and the tree fell true
and there was cheering and I was proud
and my father held me
and laughed and we cut that old tree to pieces
and the chainsaw roared and the sawdust flew and
that smell
was the greatest smell on earth,
the power of it overwhelmed us
and my father and I ruled the world on that day with our
ropes and our chains
and oils and cooler
full of lunch
and I remember
thinking how happy I was
because I spent father’s day alone
with my dad
and nobody else
existed in that world
that we had created!.
And months later, when
the high pitched whine of burning elm
filled the living room
my father said
“That’s that tree we dropped
at Clymer’s place, remember that
David!?”
And I said
yes,
I remembered!.


For
elyslund!.

I hope you got out of that old
barn
for awhile!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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