A Well-Placed Shim

Oct 11 2015

The ladder came with the place.

Along with the deep orange shag,

firewood

that was mostly dry rot

infested with mice.

A step ladder,

paint-spattered

on wobbly legs

a little battered and bent.

Which would do

for a man who’s hardly handy;

a rickety ladder

in need of a well-placed shim.

Like a deck of cards

under a bad chair

so long as you sit still.

Shakily ascending

I swapped out bulbs

cleared the gutter

cut the low-hanging branch.

How useful is that?

A simple shim

to restore life to balance

steady, level, safe;

a temporary fix

until things inevitably change.

Which is good enough

for a man who’s hardly handy

and all one can expect.

So now

I’m back on solid ground,

anointed by light

and nicely set for rain.

Let the mice

fend for themselves.

Pretty much a true story. The ladder was left by the previous owner, and there’s no doubt why:  it wobbles badly, no matter what; and a good workman would have long since used it for firewood. But I’m not; and I make do. I was using it today on uneven ground:  shimming it up, gingerly testing it. I don’t know how that word came to me, but there it was:  shim. What a great word! What a great concept! Because all of life is improvising, making do, constructing temporary little fixes to get us through. Is a white lie a shim? Buying take-out, instead of home-made?

… And yes, I also inherited some deep-pile shag. Beige; and it’s still in the basement. No mice, but there was a snake in the woodpile. The wood, though, was good.