Happy In
Our Work
A place for everything.
Like a tack-board on a workshop wall,
each tool
Like a tack-board on a workshop wall,
each tool
in its appointed spot
matched to its outline.
Yes, peace of mind
for the meticulous tinkerer
who keeps careful track.
But are inanimate objects
also reassured
by order --
each tool, put to proper use,
each implement
easily at hand?
Everything in its place,
and the universe
for the meticulous tinkerer
who keeps careful track.
But are inanimate objects
also reassured
by order --
each tool, put to proper use,
each implement
easily at hand?
Everything in its place,
and the universe
unfolding as it should.
As a man
settling in his favourite chair
sighs, leaning back.
As the choreography
of the stars, and their planets
seems decreed
As a man
settling in his favourite chair
sighs, leaning back.
As the choreography
of the stars, and their planets
seems decreed
everlasting.
When you use a tool well
it conforms to the hand,
matching its curves
balancing its pressure points.
How a heavy hammer
with its burnished wooden handle
feels warm and smooth,
a well-mannered tool
almost happy in our work.
The nail, exactly struck
with a final solid thud.
I read an interview with Lena Dunham (among other accomplishments, the creator, writer, director, and star(!) of HBO's Girls) in which she said this:
"I feel happiest when I write and make things. I feel like I'm a tool being put to its proper use. And that's a feeling we're all after." (Johanna Schneller, in the Globe and Mail ofSept 27 2014 ).
Reading this, it immediately struck me as a simple reduction of the complicated idea of happiness: as if describing that point in life when you're finally comfortable in your own skin, when you've found your niche, your role, your identity. First, because I easily identified, since I too find it in writing. And second, because I love the metaphor of "tool": something useful, happy in work, uniquely suited to its perfect task, and couldn't help picturing a workshop festooned with hammers and saws, all smiling contentedly. It's as if the world would finally feel at rest when there was "a place for everything, and everything in its place", and as if our own peace of mind depended on the inanimate objects around us.
In this, I kind of identified with my neighbour, who has a fully equipped and immaculate workshop, who can build and fix anything beautifully, and who is slightly OCD: I can just feel the profound sense of contentment he must feel when the work is perfect and everything is happily in its place. Not only do I, too, feel at ease when the house around me is neatly ordered, but also more productive; as if I have carved out a peaceful space in which I'm free to work.
So I guess what I'm doing in this poem is trying to encapsulate, in the hammering of a nail, Dunham's simple -- yet deeply affecting -- definition of happiness.
I like the personification of the tools. It starts in the first stanza, when I pretty much say it: "inanimate objects ...also reassured". But I think really works later on, when I show it, in a way that sneaks up on the reader: "almost happy in our work." And I think I got away with a shameless cliché, sneaking in "everything in its place ..." by splitting it. I needed that cliché, and couldn't have improved upon it, because it's the perfect distillation of this poem.
When you use a tool well
it conforms to the hand,
matching its curves
balancing its pressure points.
How a heavy hammer
with its burnished wooden handle
feels warm and smooth,
a well-mannered tool
almost happy in our work.
The nail, exactly struck
with a final solid thud.
I read an interview with Lena Dunham (among other accomplishments, the creator, writer, director, and star(!) of HBO's Girls) in which she said this:
"I feel happiest when I write and make things. I feel like I'm a tool being put to its proper use. And that's a feeling we're all after." (Johanna Schneller, in the Globe and Mail of
Reading this, it immediately struck me as a simple reduction of the complicated idea of happiness: as if describing that point in life when you're finally comfortable in your own skin, when you've found your niche, your role, your identity. First, because I easily identified, since I too find it in writing. And second, because I love the metaphor of "tool": something useful, happy in work, uniquely suited to its perfect task, and couldn't help picturing a workshop festooned with hammers and saws, all smiling contentedly. It's as if the world would finally feel at rest when there was "a place for everything, and everything in its place", and as if our own peace of mind depended on the inanimate objects around us.
In this, I kind of identified with my neighbour, who has a fully equipped and immaculate workshop, who can build and fix anything beautifully, and who is slightly OCD: I can just feel the profound sense of contentment he must feel when the work is perfect and everything is happily in its place. Not only do I, too, feel at ease when the house around me is neatly ordered, but also more productive; as if I have carved out a peaceful space in which I'm free to work.
So I guess what I'm doing in this poem is trying to encapsulate, in the hammering of a nail, Dunham's simple -- yet deeply affecting -- definition of happiness.
I like the personification of the tools. It starts in the first stanza, when I pretty much say it: "inanimate objects ...also reassured". But I think really works later on, when I show it, in a way that sneaks up on the reader: "almost happy in our work." And I think I got away with a shameless cliché, sneaking in "everything in its place ..." by splitting it. I needed that cliché, and couldn't have improved upon it, because it's the perfect distillation of this poem.
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