Trades

I want to be a carpenter,
To work all day long in clean wood,
Shaving it into little thin slivers
Which screw up into curls behind my plane;
Pounding square, black nails into white boards,
With the claws of my hammer glistening
Like the tongue of a snake.
I want to shingle a house,
Sitting on the ridge pole in a bright breeze.

I want to put the shingles on neatly,

Taking great care that each is directly between two others.

I want my hands to have the tang of wood:
Spruce, Cedar, Cypress.

I want to draw a line on a board with a flat pencil,
And then saw along that line,
With the sweet-smelling sawdust piling up in a
yellow heap at my feet.

That is the life!

Heigh-ho!

It is much easier than to write this poem.