That wood won’t work. It was chainsawed roughly by someone who had no eye for logs and now it can’t be split. It’s piled by the side of the road in squat disks like kinged checkers, game over. I myself do not cut wood, but review this situation through the eyes of a friend whose pretty impressive woodpile I’ve seen in a photo he sent. All that wood stacked against the shed—enough for a winter, I guessed. Six cords, he refined. Later came the word limb (as a verb) in conversation. And when I said “ax” and he corrected with “maul” (not really a minor adjustment), choice emerged, the field of cutting enlarged and was no longer the simple stock act of cartoons. Hatchet arose. I imagined the restive, neatly hung options lining the shed in the photo. (“Splitting mauls come in four-pound increments: eight, twelve, sixteen—mine is sixteen; between maul and ax, the ax is more versatile: slimmer, lighter, sharper . . . A maul doesn’t have to be very sharp. It doesn’t cut, it just pries,” my friend writes, going on about functions and choices, since I asked.)

 

Photo: Thomas Ott

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