THE SLINGBLADE A man needs a tool to show he is equipped in this world. Mine is my slingblade. With it I can tame any obstacle of nature. Can tame any plot of land and make it productive and thrive. Just give me enough time. I cut away the underbrush. Slice away wandering roots, chip at the ground-stone below with a metallic ring. Eden is underneath. A man needs a weapon to show that in this world he is neither a tool of nor ever submissive to evil men. Mine is my longknife. With it evil men approach me slowly and with great caution. Their machinations and reckless schemes do them little that is good. My longknife is my personal friend, and like me, without fear. He is bright earth and sharp in my hand. A man needs friends in this world to show what kind of man he is. Mine are cops and soldiers and farmers and other men of personal honor and real achievement. I am a writer and inventor and tool-maker. Sometimes a musician and artist and designer of things. Often an entrepreneur. But in my heart of hearts I am, and always shall be, a Frontiersman. And I am simple, like a Monk. I am not of the city. I am not an intellectual. I am not airy and vapid in thought or deed. I am unimpressed by colored lights and ostentatious displays. Clever but useless theories hold no sway with me, they are empty and ignorant. Cold, failed, and without purpose. I am flesh and blood. I am bone and sweat and labor and cut earth and growing things. I am wild inside, and yet at perfect peace, and happy to be that way. Fresh air and clean streams. Fish and hawks, deer and bobcats. God and this, this is my Work. A man needs a home in this world to show that he is settled and there. Mine have always been on hills, have always grown out of the fresh soil. Shone in the sun, stood in the storm, waited quietly at night in the dark while I am away. A tower inside me, a lighthouse without. The house by the forest, the home within that no one ever saw. A man needs a good dog and good animals to show life that life is good. Mine is a Dane, as big as the full moon. He runs at me and we wrestle. I run with him through the woods and we explore. This is what a man needs. The wolf he tamed at his side, the comrade of his High Soul. Blood and breath and simple food shared as we watch the sun and moon ceaselessly revolve until Death plants us back into the earth to await our resurrections. A man needs a good woman to show him what he can become. Mine is my wife. As sweet as summer fruit fresh picked and riper still. She looks like the brown earth newly plowed, and smells richer than the harvest. She couples me and I am many times multiplied. A man should be fruitful and full. A man should be something at the end other than what he first began. A man should sometimes rest from his toil and the outlying futility of the world. A good woman is a good rest and a happy bed. A man needs children and grandchildren to show the future what he will become when he can no longer seed this world with himself. My children are good children. My children shall greatly exceed me, and excel themselves. Of all things I have ever done, this is the best. There is a slingblade in my soul. It cuts this way, then that. It is restless, and it fits in my hand as if I were born with it. Or to it. Or for it. Anyway it truly is, I’m not hard to please.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 16:32:47 +0000
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