Days Use Me Gently Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Days use me gently - sleep, love, solitude
The tools of time's preparing - revealing
Skills lovingly applied with exactitude
Shaping the commonplace with meaning:

These craftsmen stretch out hours - measuring
The width and spans of laths of latitude
The height and depth of lengths of longitude
The intersections and the severing.

Now they are slowing, resting - assessing
The cuts made final - surfaces sanded finely -
Sawdust and shavings tidied - and polishing
Enough to bring to lustre finally

My object - holding future fortitude -
Whose days of work receive my gratitude.