Wedges Poem by Trevor Toews

I am working on something, working every day.
It won't be finished for a long, long time.
And I don't want to force it to completion anymore.
Every time I work with haste, I cause delay
And have to go back through the same old pantomime
And not so greatly wiser than before.
Knowing when to lift and when to let things settle;
It's hard for me to ever get those straight.
I even wonder if I'll someday learn
That sometimes we must coast and sometimes pedal.
But I? No, I too oft miscalculate
And it hurts to miss the sudden skid-marked turn.
I had to reconstruct some things the other day.
You know how a tapered wedge can be;
It takes determination when you're driving
But once the big end goes in all the way
It just pivots there, when you try to wrench it free
Nothing works despite of all the striving.
I actually went to find an even wider wedge
And drive it in beside the spot already tender
Then pull the first, then wiggle at the second
‘Til finally the split was settled, edge to edge
Except for just a divot in the center
To remind me what I'd done, I reckoned.
But anyway, that is how it seems to go for me
No further in the project, only slightly wiser
The plan is always changing, the goal remains
Perhaps the progress isn't what you see
(It seems I need more time with my advisor)
Or maybe there's a reason for these pains
Paltry, what I've done so far it seems
To that I really don't know what to say
I thought I'd be productive in my prime
But that was when I fabricated dreams.
I'm working on something, working every day
It won't be finished for a long, long time.