This is a short poem about today’s modern lumberjacks. You might not know what a skidder is, so I have included an image of one.
Uniform: workboots, Carhart’s, down vest,
Longjohns, flannel shirts or jack shirts.
A beard and mustache, sore muscle hurts
and broken bones badly mended hurt too.
The chainsaw wounds unattended.
The bank doesn’t care as long as it gets its money.
Money that hurts. Pulpwood keeps you poor.
Skidders need more cash than gas.
No suit at the bank cares when a widow maker breaks your arm.
“Pay us. You dead beat – why don’t you work?”
The hospital says “Pay us or we’ll take your skidder.
Why don’t you work? Why don’t you work?”
No love is greater than working in the woods for family.
No death is crueler than under wood meant to feed a family.
