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Trades
I WANT to be a carpenter.
To work all day long in clean wood,
Shaving it into little thin slivers
Which screw up into curls behind my plane ;
Pounding square, black nails into white boards.
With the claws of my hammer glistening
Like the tongue of a snake.
I want to shingle a house.
Sitting on the ridge pole in a bright breeze.
I want to put the shingles on neatly.
Taking great care that each is directly between two others.
I want my hands to have the tang of wood :
Spruce, Cedar, Cypress.
I want to draw a line on a board with a flat pencil.
And then saw along that line.
With the sweet-smelling sawdust piling up in yellow heap at my feet.