Driftwood

How does one
construct a poem?

Some I think are like the purest steel -
product of master sword makers,
patiently formed and traditional.
Forged in the furnace of much affliction,
smelted and re-smelted,
purified, hammered, folded, tempered,
forged, hammered and re-forged for days
till the blade maker is satisfied.
Whether decorative
or deathly utilitarian,
treated with respect and care
they last through generations.

Another kind, I liken Copperware.
Poets take tin snips and tongs,
a sheet of copper,
ball-peen hammer,
anvil and horn to
form and shape with
moderate force
the ringing sound.
The finished thing -
Tortoise-shell surface burnished golden -
sits both reflective and beautiful in its self.

Others I think are pottery.
Some, moulded as green-ware,
mud of the earth,
untempered, unglazed,
never holding water -
meant for dry and
basic service till worn out.
While others, from better clays,
crafted, decorated, glazed
fired to last a lifetime,
formed for aesthetics,
and joy of words.

Still, of both kinds
most wind up as shards,
tossed out when accident or
or changing style ends their wholeness.

And some are made of wood -
three kinds I’ve seen.

Poems of rough carpentry –
Sufficient, sturdy and enduring,
if constructed by calloused hands.

Poems carved from fine woods,
following the grain,
exploiting every natural feature,
sanded, stained, polished to a sheen,
meant to last,
to gather a deep and aged patina.

Poems of driftwood,
formed by natural actions -
wind, wave, sand, fire, flood -
suggestive, impassioned,
begging to be used,
to see the rebirth of personality.

Poems of stone,
mostly granite,
cut from living rock,
the form in the sculptor’s mind.
Chisel, hammer, sand, water, dust;
incremental chipping till
a raw shape emerges -
Easter Island coarse,
Romanesque grace,
Modern abstract -
each a statement of its own.

Poems of glass -
cut glass the finest,
blown glass the most subtle.
Beautiful and liquid in the furnace,
cold and clear when cooled.
Colours, hues,
transparent, opaque, translucent -
brittle things
meant for displaying the glassmaker’s craft.

Of all these constructs I
much prefer -
Driftwood.

Washed up on the tide,
driftwood has travelled,
been exposed to life and death,
rubbed shoulders with
flotsam and jetsam in the rising wave.
Wise of currents, both
becalmed and
having ridden the tempest.
Been jettisoned upon the beach,
sandblasted,
bleached,
half buried and forgotten
till a sandaled walker -
beach-comber of singing words -
takes the thing
and gives it
life.

Other metaphors suggest themselves –
Lesser and useless things:
Poems of plastic and costume jewels,
hay and stubble,
treacle and cotton-candy.
Things of the ego,
melancholy and forced,
adding nothing,
building nothing,
giving nothing.
Only asking –
demanding,
taking.

How some-ever you construct
your poems,
bear us in mind –
who would your willing audience
become.


By James Gagiikwe © 2007