Masonry - May 15 2024

 

Masonry

May 15 2025



He built walls.

Slathered on the mortar,

patted it down

with practiced precision.

Hefted bricks

and placed them evenly

end-to-end

and bottom up.

Sometimes, he trimmed them

with a hammer, chisel, or axe.

Then finished

with the jointer of his choice,

if not a bucket handle

then a rat’s tail, grapevine, or flat.

Someone else had dug the clay

formed the bricks

and fired them.

And it was some other man

who stacked them on a truck

and delivered them reliably,

pallets

tightly packed

with dense blocks of bricks,

as big as the man-sized stones

that built the pyramids.

All journeymen, working with their hands.

It takes practice

to make it look as easy as this.

I watch him at work,

the economy of movement

muscle memory

expert eye.

There’s a regular rhythm to his work

that’s hard not to watch;

hand-to-hand

and right-to-left

in a fluid back and forth.

He works swiftly,

and the wall rises steadily

before my eyes;

finished mortar

between evenly-spaced bricks

on a solid foundation

some other journeyman poured.

I wonder if at the end of a day

he stands back

and admires the fruits of his labour,

a good day’s work

that can actually be seen

measured

leaned against.

Something he made with his hands

and built to last,

unlike the daily chores

wasted words

and hot passions

we quickly forget

when the next life-or-death issue

fires us up

with its passing importance.

From jour, the French for day,

an itinerant labourer

going from job to job

when he can find the work.

But this man is no hod carrier 

or go-fer grunt,

he is a craftsman and maker

skilled at his trade.

Who has made a wall

he can proudly show

to the sons and daughters he will have some day;

a monument

to the practical life

of a working man,

who was good at his job

and kept dutifully at it.

I’m not at all handy. I don’t work with my hands. Don’t build things. Am at a loss when something needs fixing. I work with words, which are ephemeral, and don't do much good even before they’re gone. So I envy people like this. I think the skilled trades are not given the status they deserve.

I recall my father driving us around fancy neighbourhoods and proudly pointing out the custom outdoor lighting his firm had designed and made. Of course, as the company owner he didn’t do the actual work. But he was proud of his men, as well as his own part in it. And particularly proud of how good the work still looked, despite time, weather, and the whims of fashion. When he shifted to building tractor trailers (the trailer part) — he was quite the entrepreneur! — he evinced the same pride whenever we passed one. I wonder if any “Mond Industries“ trailers are still on the road?

The poem was inspired by that one word: journeyman, which for some reason jumped out at me in my daily reading. Perhaps because of the tension it contains. There is jour, which suggests a sort of easily replaceable labourer, hired day to day. While the word actually means something very different: a journeyman is a skilled tradesman who has his undergone a long apprenticeship, passed rigorous tests, and has his official papers. To me, this word seems to summon up the dignity of labour, taking a professional pride in one’s work, and having a specialized skill.

I quite enjoyed writing the 2nd stanza: playing around with the esoteric language of some small corner of life. Finding the music in the sounds. Enjoying the feel of novel words in my mouth. I hope the reader enjoys it as well.

(I wasn’t sure if I’d made up this word. Or at least this form of it. But apparently, “go-fer” is OK. Also (more commonly?) spelled “gofer” or “gopher”. But whichever way, a self-explanatory combination of “go” and “for”.