The crooked wood the axe neatly halves
and two times neatly displays. Their parting
the wintershed: strange arrivals to the newness
of cold. The handle of the axe juts up in the scene,
and a man in pause, in wool plaid, smokes.

The blue of air. He will, sometime,
warm his hands; blow them out and clasp
again the axe from the rut. The wintershed
is not part of the scene, and there is nothing
for the fall of wood, but the 'dug'
that echoes out, cleaving the eyes of the watchers.