It rained all day, the glist'ning patio
Makes slipp'ry play; my work shoes catch no grip.
'Tween hammock stand and picnic table go
The door I need to shorten ere I slip.
New carpet all throughout our groaning house
Piled high, too high for our old doors to swing,
So off the hinges, after Sunday's douse
Into the yard I drag the hollow thing.
Sawhorses have we not, nor painted trim,
Nor planer of our own to do the work;
My wife's dad had (we borrowed it from him)
So on this eve in twilight I might lurk
And lean upon the leanéd door to pare
A fraction of an inch each screaming pass
Through foggy goggles with intent I glare
The disappearing door, spread 'mong the grass.
Who'll clean the yard? Whose job will be the mess,
The side effect of purposeful travail?
When these are planed and hung again, what next?
What new way has our house begun to fail?
Less than a sheet each push removes the tool;
The work is slow and loud and hard and yet
With sweat and hours and sinew as my fuel
There's progress, hard to see, but evident.
Downstairs I grind the doors while dry inside
The family bakes, the children occupied.
Based on a true story. I had to plane a half inch off the doors because we got new carpet because we’d chopped up the floor because we found a leak in a pipe. If you live your whole life in the same house, you’ll have a lifetime of working on busted things in that house. It’s like a body that way, except you can’t throw up your hands and say actually I think we’d be better off renting a body for a while and having someone else come around and fix it up because this is nuts.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
This is Phil.
Photo by Barn Images on Unsplash