A Glorious Lack of Perfection

t is the old way of printing. Lead dies, cut, etched,
carefully placed, coated with ink, and then,
one sheet at a time, printed, left to dry,
slowly stacked, collated and sent out.
Bound perhaps, or as broadsheets,
Flimsy newspapers and ads with uneven printing.

It’s not the only thing. Your house is full
of handcrafted antiques, rifles, tables,
the old carved birds your grandfather whittled
and painted with whatever old paint was left in the barn.
They live on your bookshelves in a place of honor.
There is a hand grinder for coffee.
Tools, rarely used now, exchanged for power and speed,
a closer semblance of perfection.

You adore the technology that floods your life,
but still, you are aware of what is lost,
the feel of pages and the smell of an old book,
the scratch of a fine pen on paper,
the slow appearance of wood, hand-cut,
shaved slowly into art and use.

There is soul in those things
and you understand soul
in a way you do not understand perfection.
and probably, never will,
more attuned to how imperfect creates
a beauty worth having, worth keeping,
worth a life in the making.

About this poem.

Perfection is highly over rated. In things and in people.

Tom