An ironmonger is a but a hardware store
And equally inaccurate both ways
For not nearly all that is mongered is iron
Just as not all that is hardware is hard
At the ironmonger one finds toilet seats
Hammers and saws, water valves, mosquito spray
Welders’ caps and leather gloves, wrecking bars
And hunting licenses against the fall
Coffee in paper cups, men vested in jeans
Stained with the work of tending the Garden
Chanting the liturgies of field and shop
Of pump and plow and press, piston and plane
Cups empty, then, their Ite, missa est:
“Well, boys, I got to go now; y’all be blessed”
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree: The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
