‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.’

– unknown; often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln
However blunt the blade was

to begin with, one must admit:

the time allocated to undertake the task 
seems excessive. Four hours

with the stovepipe hat set aside, the shirtsleeves

rolled, four hours whistling as he held 
the weapon to the whetstone’s happy edge

or brought it to the wheel, then depressed

and depressed his hefty boot, 
scraping out sparks in a celebratory

cascade. He must have stopped

every so often to roll his shoulders, to stretch 
the presidential neck and quadriceps —

nevertheless, patience is the lesson,

patience while his waistcoat darkens 
from perspiration, while he ignores

a sacral ache, patience while state business

remains in stasis, patience while the thing 
is whittled sharper than the republican

cheekbones from which his gravitas hung. Surely

there comes a point at which the thing 
can be no keener, when the dream

of raw timber becomes sweeter

than any genuine sap could be, varnishing
one’s palms with its dark, deciduous gleam.

There must be a moment in which

preparation extends past itself, 
past readiness, into the pleasure inherent

in tension; some unstatesmanlike frisson,

too impolitic to mention.