A Tough Log Poem by Brian Rihlmann

As a boy I'd split wood with him
with a steel wedge
and a sledgehammer.

Dad would do most
of the hammering
and I'd stack the pieces
in neat piles.

But he'd let me go at it sometimes,
with a smaller hammer,
and every so often
came a hardwood log,
knotted cherry, or oak,
with severed branches
at odd angles
that just wouldn't give.

We'd get halfway
with the wedge buried inside,
the twisted grain
holding it prisoner.

So we'd flip it,
use a second wedge,
and if you hit it just right,
and the air was cold enough,
one blow could crack
the grain of two hundred years
the sound piercing
the frozen January sky
like a gunshot.