This change will probably be brought about when the weather conditions change. In the morning, the sky is blue, meaning childhood, while the heavy rain in the afternoon can be associated with adulthood: he will grow up. This might encourage the boy to continue working, because he seems to like big challenges (“when you are fourteen, big logs are what you want”), such as cutting down huge pieces of wood, but on the other hand, he may consider that his work is rather heavy and that it takes a long time, because of the use of words like “distance”, “eternities” and “settle down”, which imply long-lasting periods of time.
Later, the following stanzas centre on the wood that is cut by the boy. The smell that the wood gives off is depicted. It is a fresh and “nose-cleansing odour”, which the speaker seems to be fond of, and, besides, it does not make him sneeze at all, like sawdust does. These stanzas add a metaphysical and religious dimension to the poem when the smoke that the pieces of wood release while being burnt is described. The smoke flies up into the sky as a signal, or some sort of sacrifice, probably to the Sun.
Finally, the last three stanzas describe the boy’s interaction with the sun. He has been fervently waiting for it to appear (“the sun finally shows up (…) like some latecomer to a fest”), as it nears him to adulthood. He believes himself to be ready to change, and this is represented by the fact that he is “got two cobs of maize ready for it”. However, for the sun to give him what he wants, he has to give something in exchange. This is how he ends up sharing his cobs with it until he ends up with nothing but the “two little skeletons”, which means that his sacrifice has been completed.
All things considered, Charles Mungoshi has wittingly used the figure of a teen lumberjack and his hard day of work to put a much more important message across: for things to happen the way you expect them to, you must make some sort of sacrifice.
