A Small Boy Watches His Father Chop Wood.

When I was six I remember watching my father. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting, and he'd line up block after block and swing that axe and the wood would split and fall to either side of the log, and he was still strong then and untouched by the cancer in his belly, and when he'd miss a block or fail to split it in one go he'd glance at me quickly, afraid to disappoint me even then.

And I wanted to tell him, but I was six and I didn't have the words, and he went on chopping until it got too dark to see and we walked back to the house hand in hand, and now as I try to thread a worm on the hook of my son's fishing line, my hand trembles slightly and I glance at him and he looks back, and I still don't have the words.