Tools

It is early morning
and you are searching
for the right tool,
going back to simple oak box
that contains planes, shavers, squares,
that once belonged to your grandfather,
abandoning the new flashy gadgets
for the simple,
for tools
that allow you to feel the work,
to become one with it,
to take the time
to realize there is more to restoration
than a slap and a dash and noise,
that we value antiques
because they last,
because the simple work,
slow and involving,
yields results
that do not fall apart
in a few years,
but last and live
and more, hold the life
of the builder
eternal, joyful, remembered
forever.

About this poem

Whether it is an antique, or our lives, applying the basics that have held for so long is the way to build the enduring. We’re all in such a hurry that we forget that. And then we wonder why our furniture, and our lives, fall apart periodically.

Tom