Henri Loubat, French
“I’m Thinking of Pitching ESPN a Lumberjack Reality Competition. I’m Calling It…’Chopped!,'” After 1880
Oil on canvas
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/// When The Lumberjacks make their Return,
the youth looks at his père with concern.
They have bonfires to fix;
he totes dead leaves and sticks.
Should they not have chopped logs they can burn?
/// Of their day’s work the boy could not brag. It
was meager, he felt like a maggot.
Firewood’s needed for heat
and to cook food to eat,
yet he carries but one measly fagot.
/// As they walk, Father shoulders their axe.
At small bushes and branches he hacks.
Trees he chops must be stunted,
since the axe blade is blunted,
and to cut a thin stick takes ten whacks.
/// The son says “We must sharpen that tool,
if we wish to get firewood for fuel.
The edge I can hone
if we get a grindstone,
making me use a nailfile is cruel.”
/// Father’s big axe is really a whopper,
not a hatchet which looks much more proper
for cutting up sticks,
but they’d be in a fix
felling trees with a much smaller chopper.
/// Watch his face. That boy isn’t relaxed.
You can see his adrenaline’s maxed.
Was his presence coerced
by what Daddy did first?
(Sonny always does just as he’s axed.)
/// The son thought of a Bible tale: “Damn!
Was that ‘Let’s go chop wood’ just a scam?
Will I soon pay the price
for my Dad’s sacrifice?
I’m like Isaac and he’s Abraham.”
/// By its curved horns a ram had been caught.
Therefore it was slain; Isaac was not.
Abe, by spotting the ram,
saved his son from a jam.
(Mother likes when Dad’s ramming the spot.)