Axe

It’s just the wrong angle for the bow saw,
With a new blue-steel blade tempered and tensed,
For it to rip into the still wet flesh
Of the forsythia lopped to a stump.
Father and son debating the best way
When granddad brings an old short-shafted axe
Pitted with rust from two generations
Of non-use, corroded, but still quite keen.
Both father and son weigh, heft and wield it
Each in turn, hacking into sap bleeding
Rump and root of the shrub, sharing the thrill
Of thoughtless, brutal labour. Afterwards,
Father discovers the axe is but one
Of so many immemorial tools
His own granddad employed with craftsman’s guile,
Making the red wooden pull-along train,
Loco and tender: Bang-bang granddad who
Was struck from life and memory of his
Four years old grandson by the rap of the
Policeman’s knuckles hard on the front door,
Reluctant harbinger bringing dire news
Of the real train and the dead platelayer.
The old axe, with due diligence, severed
Stump and root from the earth, leaving an absence
Along the line of bushes and bedding plants;
And father knowing he doesn’t have the craft
To employ those venerable tools to fashion
Some wooden toy that might become well loved
By his own grandchild still in gestation,
But who may, one day, also forget him.

                                                 Dave Alton