Friday 3 July 2015

Making things

I've got a friend who makes furniture out of old pieces of wood and metal etc he finds in in the hard rubbish left on the street. Last night he was showing me some of what he has made and how he makes it.

It occurred to me that what he was doing would make a great community TV program. It is also a metaphor for how we should treat others.

Since I didn't have a camera on me at the time I wrote a poem instead...............


Carpenter

Every now and then
The fuzz clears from the brain
And you see
Reality

Not the illusion of what is
But the reality of
What is meant to be

It’s in the old wood
And rusty iron
Not just recycled
But reshaped
Not loosing any of the defects
That make it what it is
Even perhaps gaining some
A hole accidently drilled in the wrong place
Filled with a spare rusty bolt
Useless as application
But essential for the nature
Of its existence

The hands of the maker
Glide softly over the surface
Sanding lightly
Clearcoat only
Anything else would destroy the patina
Devaluing beyond words
In vain attempt
To make better

Our natural tendency
Is to panel beat the surface
With a blunt hammer
And a coat of shiny paint
As long as it looks
The same as everything else
It’s OK

If you hide what’s underneath
Maybe like the quantum
It’ll cease to exist
At least for a time

But the inconvenient nature
Of the quantum universe
Ensures that it just
Pops up again
At random
Someware else

It’s much better
To help the ladder
Become the table
That it’s meant to be
Than to force it
To be the shiny
Set of steps
That you want
 

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