A careful cut, it is the stuff,
Of which our world is made,
Utility and art are fused,
The noblest of the trades,

A sturdy chair of solid wood,
Yet sturdier the heart,
Passion, vision, faithful work,
The noblest of the arts.

Call it a yard, call it a shed,
That vessel grew up in bed,
With a covered head,
So that its frame did not get wet,
But better yet,
Many times,
Resins used were left to dry,
Into the cracks their poxys pry,
To amalgamate the creaking ply.

And only when the final *****,
Twists its way to something new,
To tie the lace of this floating shoe,
Still sitting under rusted roof;
When the metal files are swept away,
And the hazel mast accepts its stain,
By a whitened brush proclaimed,
Only then does she take her name.

For a day or two she’s left to linger,
Poised at the top of her sheltered slip,
A proud and shining ship,
Held in place by the gasping grip,
Of the steadfast holding line.

Her ivory sails lie week and flat,
And there is irony in that,
For a girl already waxed and named,
With canvas cut and metals tamed,
Perched there upon that ledge,
Has yet to take her newborn breath.

Through forward rings two ropes are thread,
To heave her from her resting bed,
Call it a yard, call it a shed,
Into the water below,
A world she does not yet know,
But there she is bound to go.

Soon her airtight helm will taste that salted swill,
Her rudders will shoulder the force of a thousand men,
And by her maker’s will,
She will not meet her end.

Bang,
Goes the steadfast holding line,
As the forward rope force applies,
Without a wince or a whine,
Does our vessel bid goodbye,
To her sheltered bed,
Call it a yard, call it a shed,

And with one final gracious bow,
Into the wet of the sea she ploughs.

His speech is rough,
his work is smooth.
Wait.
Don’t make him talk.

His tools can maim
or make an angel.
He has wrinkles like wood grain,
memories like wood scraps.
Wait, and he’ll carve one.

The stories come
gnarled, with knotholes.
Listen.  
He chuckles like a chisel
working old walnut.

From this tree, they lynched John T,
for the crime of speaking
against slavery. Dead now, this spar
stands among Holsteins
in the pasture of a man
who figures we’re cousins somehow.
He, a midwestern farmer,
me, a California craftsman,
political poles apart
but blood is thicker than geography.

Ancient black walnut
hollowed by rot is tough to salvage.
Working together with chain saw
and wrecking bar we find a section
of solid core, and on the surface
a scar like a grinning face
where the branch broke off,
long gone one hundred fifty years,
the branch that held the rope
that swung John T’s three hundred and fifty
pounds of muscle and fat and bluster
until it snapped.

John T, who was the grandfather
of my grandfather, ran into the forest
where his best friend rescued him,
a man named, ironically, Lynch,
grandfather of the grandfather
of the man with whom I speak.
Thus, cousins — in the country way.

I’ll make salad bowls, I say,
wooden forks and tongs,
walnut plates, maybe even a tea set
for your daughter
who seems so outspoken,
so feisty and strong.
Tea set? he says, she needs a lectern!

So here it is.
The grinning knot on the surface.
Those holes in the side, from bullets.
Lead slugs. I dug them out.
Here, this cloth sack.
May she heft them in her fist.
May her words
fire like cannons
for freedom.