The Shed

                                           To Rudolph Lewis

By Richard Lawson

I hope that you, old friend, toiling away

to fix the roof of your store shed

all day for days in overwhelming heat,

the sweat of natural Florida,

that makes this too-warm English summer

seem temperate again,

I hope you win.  I hope your father’s store

Is gloried with the roof      that it deserves

I hope that you don’t fall.

I want my friends in Africa

pinned down in Mogadishu

by flying lead, not nails,

to know about your shed.

I want as many people now

to know about your shed

as stand to learn from it,

because it’s more than shed

we talking here.

Fine as it no doubt is   as shed,

this one is more than timber,

more than tar paper and sweat,

more than determination,

more than a health and safety risk,

more than some slabs of wood

arranged with more or less regard

to canons     of structural integrity:

It is a thing of spirit,

creation of a living poet.

                            Architecture. Frozen blues, maybe.

Cathedrals come to mind.

Not that they should come

en masse to make a pilgrimage,

although in fact when you have gone

they might well come,

for few are famous while they breathe,

and of the ones that are,

it would be better for us all

that they were not,

                                maybe.

The point is that this shed

is getting built.

Trees are our brothers.

They live and die

just like John Barleycorn,

and willingly giving up the sap

to win  new life  in service to their family.

This shed was once alive,

bi-placentate in form,

a joiner-up of earth and sky

the fusion point in its green sap

to all four elements.

Like Shiva’s locks that broke the flood

Its leaves      gave shade from blazing sun.

Trees give us unconditional love,

like dogs and gods;

                                  some gods,

                                                        sadly not all.

It died to find itself becoming shed.

Frozen blues? In Florida now

the only frozen things

are found in white machines

humming beneath their breath

just while the juice is on.

Not frozen:   solid blues

from far away, blown out by Buddy Bolden,

crossing a river wider, deeper, cooler than

Pontchartrain to celebrate one poet’s work.

It’s up there with the wolf and the owl

and in the end, I dare say

up there with

Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani,

if all the Truth be known.

The point is this:

this is a shed that’s going up.

Rudy is in the business    of building sheds,

not breaking them.

He does not use his strength   to knock down sheds.

He does not bulldoze    structures.

He brings no lethal force to bear   on others’ work.

There are no bombs   in Rudy’s bag.

That’s all. That’s good. That’s all we need.

*   *   *   *   *

© Richard Lawson

August 2006

posted 20 August 2006