Image based on photo by Dan Sherley
Balancing on Its Rusty Blade
The ax rests against the railing, balancing on its rusty blade, single leg stretched skyward. The handle is split, a fifth of it separating from the rest, like an open beak. The wood has weathered to silver-gray, patterned with vertical lines and ripples. Over the years, countless hands have grasped it, testing the tool’s heft, taking aim. The handle has absorbed the sweat of my husband’s hands, the sweat of his father’s and grandfather’s hands. It’s ironic how the wood handle embraces the blade, its job to guide it, whistling, into the hearts of trees.
Asleep on the cusp of uselessness, the ax dreams of motion. It has been still for so long, poised on the edge of the unused stairs, that a strand of spider silk arcs between handle and railing. A brown spider is curled, unmoving, at midpoint. Rust dapples the blade: deep brown, reddish-brown, and sepia. Rust scabs the dull edge. Only two splotches of protective blue paint remain, glossy and placid as ponds. On the side, the engraved words “Red Diamond” invite my forefinger to trace their elegant cursive letters. Strangely, a single moth wing adheres to the base of the blade, trembling whenever the breeze stirs. This slight movement accentuates the serenity of the afternoon, the steady background of insect hum and leaf rustle . . . the stealthy approach of memory.
Forgetting the spider’s tightrope, I move the ax up on the deck into full sunlight, to see it more clearly. The blade is beautiful, really, like a landscape seen from the sky: varying textures of turned earth, red sand, and vernal pools reflecting blue. At the touch of my fingertips to the surface, I’m pulled into the life of the ax. Its world is so small, so distant, but it holds the shrunken past, precariously balanced near its vanishing point. It holds the scent of sawdust and nails, the rhythmic music of hammer and ax as my husband built our house. Looking down into that lost place, I see myself, bent over my pregnant middle, planting tulip bulbs with my mother-in-law while a drill whines. The bulbs bloom only once before deer discover them. The daughter inside of me and her sister to follow never see them. The house magically lifts its empty frame. The roof lowers to enclose us. Windows and doors open and close. Babies become girls, then young women. The blade holds the sound of their laughing and fighting. It holds the missing voices of my husband’s father and grandfather, still calling out to each other across the open foundation. One hand to the ruined metal summons it all back. The old blade is noisy.
Now luminous in the spotlight of its new setting, the ax draws the eye of my husband. When I go inside, the ax disappears. The same day, he buys a new handle, sharpens the blade, contemplates projects. The ax pulls deeper into itself, re-gathers its shadows, falls silent.
Copyright © 2007 by Christine Boyka Kluge
