Well-Used
June 3 2014


This object began as light
air, water.

It was cut, cleanly off

at the crotch of a sturdy branch.

Like a severed leg
which no longer bends,
has not yet learned
to walk.

It was carved by hand
and eye,
rubbed to a silky finish;
so smooth
you want to touch, hold
never let go.
Fine-grained, along its length,
and so richly stained
the grain magnifies
contrast darkens.

But mostly, where it was gripped,
where pressure and sweat and grit
and the skin's natural oils
infused the wood with wear,
the deep patina
only time bestows.

And wood is always warm
to the touch.
Your tongue will freeze
to steel
plastic cracks.
But wood forgives;
like home,
takes you back, no matter what.

The walking stick
with its metal tip, and burnished handle
conserves the curve of the branch
from which it grew,
contains the light
the great oak drew.

But where it was held
is the truth
of a singular object;
well-loved
as it was well-used.

I just read this poem in The New Yorker (June 9 & 16, 2014 - see below), and felt inspired.

I love wood: the beauty of its grain, its burnished smoothness, the way it ages, how it reflects its years of use. I was thinking of a heavy ornate door, a big chunky handle that has fit thousands of hands. But the poem ended up in a walking stick. Perhaps too many episodes of Antiques Roadshow!

It's also a paean to craftsmanship, to graceful ageing, to the antithesis of obsolescence.

Anyway, I stole the idea, but ended up going in a very different direction: with neither Richardson’s personification, or existential angst. This is the line that probably most influenced my opening, and got me started: "Its branchings have slowed the invisible feelings of light." I love the idea of all those years of sun contained in a piece of wood; of the wood as "a standing wave" that conflates both time and stillness. So in my poem, it becomes “began in light”, and later “contains the light the great oak drew.”

I went more for the sensuous (a word I repeatedly and embarrassingly confuse with sensual; but actually got right this time!) aspect than the philosophical. And so a more descriptive, simple, accessible poem. Which may not be as challenging either to read or write, but suits me better. And incidentally continues the theme of things/objects, from my previous piece (Stuff).

 

ESSAY ON WOOD

BY JAMES RICHARDSON.

At dawn when rowboats drum on the dock

and every door in the breathing house bumps softly

as if someone were leaving quietly, I wonder

if something in us is made of wood,

maybe not quite the heart, knocking softly,

or maybe not made of it, but made for its call.

Of all the elements, it is happiest in our houses.

It will sit with us, eat with us, lie down

and hold our books (themselves a rustling woods),

bearing our floors and roofs without weariness,

for unlike us it does not resent its faithfulness

or question why, for what, how long?

Its branchings have slowed the invisible feelings of light

into vortices smooth for our hands,

so that every fine-grained handle and page and beam

is a wood-word, a standing wave:

years that never pass, vastness never empty,

speed so great it cannot be told from peace.