Slowly, in Good Light

It is called graining. A painting technique
where you comb layers of paint,
dark over light, to create a false front,
something that looks like fine wood,
but it is not.

Typically, you start with pine. A plain wood.
Not exactly worthless, but close to it.
One or more layers of a glaze,
then the darker paint, fooling the eye
into believing it is seeing walnut, or oak or mahogany.
There is a delicate balance
Between patterns and randomness
and it is not easy.

It is a slow art. It takes patience. It takes time
to learn how to feather the metal combs
and make value out of cheap and forgotten.
and it only lasts a few years
before it has to be done again.

That’s why the rich loved it. It was showing off,
the spending of money that had a shelf life,
where things did not have to last. In fact,
it was better when it did not.

I learned the trade as a teenager.
It was, for me, art. Unsigned. Unrecognized,
but an art nonetheless. I grained pocket doors,
church doors, and panels in stairwells.
Each project took days and I would lose myself.
a poor man’s Michelaglo.

Now and again, I stumble on a bit of my work
and it all is showing its wear.
The magic still there but pitted or flaking,
in need of repair, which is a whole different art.

There is a part of me that would like to leave behind
the life I have built over almost fifty years,
and go back to graining and the repair of graining.
To lose myself for days at a time
with brushes and combs and paint.

I cannot tell you what part of losing myself
appeals the most, but the need runs deep,
like wood grain. The real thing,
not the kind I work at, slowly, in good light.

About this poem

This one? I had an entirely different poem, a different mood, a different theme planned. But words sometimes have a mind of their own.

The photograph was taken at the Vanderbilt mansion on the Hudson River.

I really did do graining when I was young. I find myself wondering if I could do it still.

Tom