The carpenter works from dawn until dusk
Rising with the golden light,
he carves until the air is cedar, mahogany, Brazilian walnut and pine
Each breathe is thick with the smell of resin
The carpenter uses these tiny specs of magic to reflect light all around him
At the centre of his workshop he keeps a birdcage
The carpenter has a pet sparrow
At night he lets the sparrow out to dance with its lover the moon
When it returns, the sparrow always brings a golden marble sun
The carpenter has 13 jars of golden marbles
He drinks amber whisky mixed with the sawdust magic specs of air
By now the carpenter is part tree
His roots go as deep as his leather work boots
He gets his energy from the morning chill
He lives near a forest
Before going to sleep he looks out of his window and recites prayers to the trees
He has named each one of them after a different family member, friend and God, he is waiting to put his faith in the last one standing
On a good day the carpenter takes walks through the tree trunk cathedral that has assembled itself around his home
This monk of wood and bone, this tree-man, he feels like the tallest hill
2 inches away from being a mountain
But the carpenter knows his soul is still growing.
These are the good days,
When he can work to the music of birds, carving living things from the dead
Like a fisherman he pulls his labour out of the ocean of dust
Breathes into it the breathe of life given to craftsmen
and sets it on a table like a new born baby
At night he thanks every tree for his calloused hands.
The carpenter wonders if they can hear him
We all wanted to be the carpenter
All wanted to pull life out of the dead things every morning
So we went searching
We poets and writers
we went searching for a voice sharp enough to cut through all thought
And on the good days we pulled from a dictionary of diction the perfect expressions of our innermost souls
On the good days we didn’t wait for our gods to fall we simply walked with them
Accepting their existence rather than cutting them down
Those were the good days and the best days when we could lift our prayers up like open hands to a father
But we all had our bad days
The days when open hands became clenched fists shaking in defiance
I want to hear you father
The days we turned our eloquence into hatchets and knives so we could cut down, cut out the roots of our faith
I want to hear you father
The days when we tore apart every word because it was getting hard to breathe with all the deforestation
Can you hear me father?
And sometimes our gods answered
And sometimes they spoke in the silence
We monks of ink and bone shards waiting to explode
Sometimes the silence was the only thing we could comprehend
We soldiers of the spoken word
Aimed our questions like rifles
Spoke our magazines empty
Punctuated our bullets into God’s chest
Because we knew he could take it
And when the wars were done
We raised our cracked lips up to every bullet hole
Kissed them healed
Wrote our words like bandages
For every injury we had a simile to rebuild it again
We were carpenters of our image of God
Stripping back everything until we were left with his face
We are still carving.
The Carpenter's Sparrow 