Sugar Pine Sonnet

My basement workshop smells of sugar pine.
This pleasant fragrance always fills the air.
It doesn't come from sawdust cut too fine
But blocks of wood just lying here and there

I've worked with walnut and mahoganies
And though they're pretty and they finish well
I couldn't work long with the likes of these
Which have a pungent and peculiar smell.

And basswood with its qualities so great 
Has nothing much to offer to my nose
So almost every carving done of late
Is pine, though some is eastern, I suppose.

My work brings no acclaim.  My wife despairs
'Cause wood chips always follow me upstairs.

-M. Paul Ward

   The poem below goes along with a carved outhouse.

GOING OUT (CONTEMPLATING RETIREMENT)

YOU CONTEMPLATE A MOVEMENT
WHICH MEANS YOU'RE GOING OUT.
YOU NEED NO PUSH FOR THIS EVENT
RELIEF IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT.                           
YOU ARE ABOUT TO TAKE THE STEP                           
AND GO OUT IN THE COLD
NO LONGER YOUNG AND FULL OF PEP
A MOVEMENT COULD BE  HARD WHEN OLD.

BUT AGE MEANS VERY LITTLE.
NO CHANGE IN STATUS QUO.
WHEN FEELING CERTAIN PRESSURE
YOU   KNOW YOU'VE GOT TO GO.
 
IT'S NOT TOO BAD.  ALL THINGS WILL PASS
JUST STOP AND THINK.  YOU'RE NOT ALONE.
SO MAKE THE MOVE AND GO. DEPART.
ENJOY RELIEF AND REIGN UPON YOUR THRONE.

 

IN OIL BASE OR WATER

YOU OUGHTA

USE VARNISH

LIKE GARNISH

OR BETTER,

JUST BURNISH

TO FURNISH

A FINISH
                      

THE CARVER’S GUARDIAN ANGEL


We have a carving partner who is always at our side
He is a workshop helping mate, protector and a guide.
Mine’s been around for many years.  He’s there, he’s bona fide.

He mostly hangs  around my shop, my cherished carving place.
Of course, I can’t describe him, I haven’t seen his face
And that’s because although he’s there, he doesn’t take up space.

He’s all around my studio. Such beings vaporize.
It’s something like the state you are in to beam and energize
While travelling, transported from, the Starship Enterprise.

I pressure him to block out blanks or make a good design
And guide me in my carving skill to turn my work out fine
And though he helps me all the time the work I do is mine.

But most of all my angel’s there to check my workmanship     
To carry me through every job and pile up chip on chip
And make dang sure my knife cuts true and doesn’t ever slip. 

 Glue, The Carver’s Friend 

The joiner and the carpenter
Make use of lots of glue.
We carvers too at times join wood
In carvings that we do.

Such action is required when
We have to build up mass
And sometimes on a smaller scale
We break a piece, alas.

Then only glue will fix it up,
Repair or put wood back.
For this the glue’s most helpful
To bolster skills we lack.

Like craftsmen who require wood glue
It seems we’re always messin
With globs and globs of yellow goo
Called aliphatic resin.

Our fingers stick, our shop gets smeared
For sure our hardest chore
Is cleaning glue from hands and work
And hardened blotches off the floor.

But after all is said and made
We look at what we’ve done.
We see no wrong in what we’ve carved.
The glue helped make a perfect one.