The carpenter
chooses carefully from his tool chest,
the event horizon from which he creates a
universe
of wood measured and sanded into divine
satisfaction.
He sits by a brook to consult a blueprint
of dreams
and other ethereal load-bearing schemes.
I rifle through the overflow drawer,
the one that contains bric-a-brac that has
no phylum,
an Ellis Island of the immigrant mind.
My fingers fumble for pens, glue, stamps,
rubber bands,
and something akin to a blade, that Queen
of the South
who rules all endeavors to build our days
ever since cavemen sharpened rock and
flint and wooden stakes.
I can find no order, no palace of
consequence.
Defeated, I sit with my back against a
tree
by the stream that flows from Pangea
to the fertile crescent of my neocortex.
The house takes shape before my focused eyes,
serene,
like a Buddha’s gaze into preternatural
skies.
And there, as if by magic, you are already
seated in the attic.
I stand, ready to climb the stairs.
~William Hammett
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