I DREAMPT THAT I DWELT

"I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side"

my father would hum or sing
or da da dah'd as he sawed.

"And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride."

A shining smile of nails
as he hammered the tune home.

Carpentry was for me
songs and words and stories.

Tall tales and wood shavings
from my father's "reminiscings'".

Saw dust floating in a summer
were to me atoms made visible.

I played with wood instead
of planning it.

The various tools transformed
with one imaginative leap.

Hand drill and spirit level
became Star Trek ships

attacked by a fleet
of tape measures.

Hacksaws...jigsaws were
all the one to me really.

And yes I knew that tooth spacing
and tooth shape were important in a saw.

A wavy set and milled teeth for plastic and metals.
A side set and ground tooth for a fast clean cut with wood.

But to me they were merely the teeth
of various pterodactyls in my Harryhausen mood.

And yes I planed wood
but only to release the genie of the pine.

The scent a magic
carpet ride.

And I planed and planed
until there was nothing left

but the graceful curl of
a sea of wood shavings.

Later he would laugh
when I brought him Carroll's parody.

"I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
went wobble-wobble on the walls..."

Or an Orwell even...

"I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?"

Or auld Jimmy the Joist
and his warping words

"When you dreamt that you'd wealth
in marble arch do you ever think of pool beg slowe."

Cracking up when
Finnegans Wake'd

"... at this passing moment
by localoption in the birds' lodging,

me pheasants among,
where I'll dreamt that I'll dwealth

mid warblers' walls when throstles and choughs
to my sigh hiehied,..."

"Ahhh Dónall lad yer a great one
for the books but

ya never took to the wood
it was always words words words!"

"But I also dreamt, which charmed me most
That you loved me still the same
That you loved me, you loved me still the same
That you loved me, you loved me still the same"