More Wood

I worked for some miserable humans in the early years, some were psychopaths, some just sociopaths. They were all first rate teachers in a hot stove kind of way.

One of a series of carpenter poems.

                More Wood

               I don’t dread
     moving a hack of lumber,
              back and forth,
             again and again,
           for a boss bent on 
          breaking me to quit.
         By their third shifting
      I recognize some grain,
         the fat shopkeeper,
            the smiling stork. 
       I'm sure they knew me.

                  As long as
       my hands were on wood 
     and I could hear hammers,
         tap, whack, smacking
                all around me,
              I would not quit.
  Pine sap, when inhaled slowly,
       always renders the world
                a better place,
       at least for the duration
       of one long, fine breath.

       The third floor stair hole
  yawned wide with no barriers-
             lazy man my boss,
          clumsy man my boss.
                     But not I
           nor my pine scented,
               sap handed grip,
           which kept him from
            the stair hole’s maw.

      Spoiled pride cannot abide
           a reminder of shame
                working nearby
                and so fired me.
     Upon this, my first sighting
       of a good deed punished,
   I took my fine smelling hands,
              and went looking
                 for more work
                and more wood.

                          3/23