The Weekly Wednesday Something #1: Building the Garage

Yeah, I'm setting some vague creative goals.  We will see how it works out.  The idea is to try to focus in and each week finish SOMETHING from one of my myriad half-started projects.

The inaugural SOMETHING this week is a poem.  Most of this stuff is going to be music but we'll start off all kinda quiet-like.  I'm not pretending to be a poet (or much of a musician, for that matter); I'm just trying to Express Myself like Madonna told me to.  I do have ambitions to create art that means something to people who do not happen to be me, i.e., other people.  But if that never happens...it will still be nice to have tried.

So this is a poem about building a garage.  It's called Building the Garage.  Hee hee.

   

                       Building the Garage

I can’t romanticize the materials or the techniques,

It’s all high-tech glue, nail guns, and plywood.

            Concrete on the floor; sheet metal on the roof.

No old wood sanded slippery smooth

            or left rugged in the haste of need.

No joints mitered with care, no axe and stump split shingles.

No rocks hauled from the creek and placed patiently

            to shelter us

            from the wolves, the wind,

            the winter’s stalking snow.

But when I stand here, boots sinking in the mud,

            face chapped, hands so tired they no longer grip,

            and cold damp sinking into my bones...

I feel the pioneer.

And the ache in my muscles makes me believe

            I could have done it—

Through hard labor, I could have carved safety from

            the offerings of the wilderness.

Come in, come in, 

Come in.

We have shelter.

We have hearth.

We have home.

There is a safe place here for us.