The Carpenter Poem by John Dixon

A day came when I held my father's jackplane,
the salt grout of his sweat on heavy beech.
I worked a face and edge on a cedar stave
that breathed the resin of dark woods
and showed the tracery of grain
made from the sun and wind, the night rain and the cold rain,
the dendrochronology of being.

I'm given, since, to workshop twilight, the small window
looking upon trees, the sun and wind, the night rain and the cold rain,
where timbers through the dust give scent according to their kind
and carry in their flesh dead chronicles of times
and contour lines of dreams nobody had.
Out of these happenings I'll make you tables, cribs and toys
not knowing how my right angle of reason
comes by the window to a thing
made of the sun and wind, the night rain and the cold rain.