I mourn a dead friend, like myself, a good carpenter. <br />-Pablo Neruda about César Vallejo <br /> <br />I looked at the book. <br />'It will stand,' I thought. <br />Not a palace <br />built by a newspaper czar, <br />nor a mud hovel <br />that the sea will soften, <br />but a good house of words <br />near the sea <br />with everything plumb. <br />That is the most I can ask. <br /> <br />I have cut the wood myself <br />from my own forests, <br />I have sanded it smooth <br />with the grain. <br />I have left knotholes <br />for the muse to whistle through <br />-old siren that she is. <br /> <br />At least the roof does not leak. <br />& the fireplace is small <br />but it draws. <br />The wind whips the house <br />but it stands. <br />& the waves lick <br />the pilings <br />with their tongues <br />but at least they do not suck me <br />out to sea. <br />The sea is wordless <br />but it tries to talk to us. <br />We carpenters are also translators. <br />We build with sounds, with whispers & with wind. <br />We try to speak the language of the sea. <br /> <br />We want to build to last <br />yet change forever. <br />We want to be as endless as the sea. <br />& yet she mocks us <br />with her barnacle & rust stains; <br />she tells us what we build will also fall. <br /> <br />Our words are grains of sand, <br />our walls are wood, <br />our windowpanes are sprayed with solemn salt. <br />We whisper, as we build, 'Forever please,' <br />-by which we mean at least for thirty years.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/good-carpenters/
