Off By Heart
July 30 2014


My neighbour built his house
from the ground up.

From its foundation

poured on bedrock,

to the strong spine

of its steeply pitched roof.

He has every tool imaginable,
organized
and meticulously tended.
So they come easily to hand,
inanimate instruments
given life
in his strong skilled grip.

The muscle memory
of hammering a nail,
slack-wristed
centre-cut.
The exquisite economy of action
in its centrifugal arc,
and the hammer-head, landing exactly
with a dull precise thud.

My instrument is a cheap ball-point pen
on blank generic paper,
used carelessly
then tossed aside.
But I too, take joy
in the pride of craftsmanship

things that last.
The telling line break,
the plangent word, finding its place
a clever verse, rephrased.

Something worthwhile, remaining
from the numbing day-to-day,
when busyness threatens
to consume us whole,
leave no mark
we ever existed.
A small measure
of my interior life,
a permanent record
of me.

As amongst all our possessions
only our houses out-live us.
We, mere custodians
who will pass them on
a little the worse for wear.
How a house becomes a home
lived-in well.

And though books decompose, paper burns
a poem may also endure.
A favourite verse, the spoken word

recited,
learned

off by heart.
Like a body revived
with the kiss of life,
words inspired
with breath.

I envy his skill. But I think what each of us do, different as it is, gratifies us in a similar way:  this idea of leaving something behind; making something good enough to last.

This is another poem based on the idea of poetry as an oral art form:  that a poem is meant to be recited and heard, not silently read. I like the conflation of breathing and inspiration:  to literally inspire, because breath is life; and to be inspired. That is, to bring words to life with the kiss of life; like artificial respiration, literally breathing them out. 

I’m a little leery of “how a house becomes a home”. I know the phrase reeks of cliché; but I suppose clichés persist because they contain an essential truth, and elegantly express it. And I think they can be used well in poetry if they’re strong enough to give the reader pause, invite her to truly hear it as if for the first time.

I like, in the beginning, the focus on the hand:  the idea of manual labour, of handiness; the hand as a symbol of both strength and precision. And I like the embodiment of craft:  not just hand and wrist and grip, but the “strong spine” and “muscle memory”, as well as the pouring and the hammering. The final stanza of the poem echoes this, with more allusions to the human body:  off by heart and kiss of life and inspired breath. There is a kind of purity in physical labour, and I want to imply this same feeling of muscularity in the assembling of words and ideas.