Axe Rest
Source: The Stone Fiddle by Paddy Tunney
Location: New Edition, page 90 / 91 (Poem)
To the knee of an oak we braced our backs,
With foreheads sweaty and resin-matted.
For space of an hour no man swung axe
But sprawled in the spruce and raved and chatted.
And horny heifers were brought and sold,
And woman wooed for their dark-eyed glances,
Till birdsong leaping in loops of gold
Ran wild with our hearts through céilí dances.
O balm for the bruise of a cross-cut tooth,
Or pimple prickled by pine-bark poison,
O yearning forged in the fires of youth,
And vision vaulting beyond horizon.
And all life poised in a pain-pitch ache
That splits the soul in a thousand splinters.
For springs and summers are doomed to take
A tomb in the weary waste of winters.