steps
walk
1
The first is a desire to make them look like they belong to the house, then you will need a practical design, viz : raised lower rails for snow clearance, top rails wide enough to support a bag of groceries, a platter of hors d’oeuvres , glass of wine After that, there’s measurement, sight lines and string lines, digging out a rough patch of sod, earth, roots and stones, raking it level, pouring cement pads for post and anchor, lots of cuts then – whine, bite, blade ring, and spray after spray
Stutter steps, hefting concrete pads, bags of gravel, bags of sand; the grubbing hoe’s lift and thud; the square shovel-head, pressed into broken sod, black soil; the axe, the wrist -thick roots, lopped and ripped from damp clay: all day their weight enters the body and stays through the hot rain of the shower, dragging my sleep deep into dreamless dark.
2
There’s a chill in the air. Aches melt into sweat as the slow rose light throws faint
of cedar dust in the wind, hex nuts and lag bolts, plastic boxes of brass deck screws for the treads and risers
shadows over arranged exertions: everything
known, this move, and this after that, cutting and setting
all the way up, to the landing – open the butternut stain can, stir with a clean stick, dip the brush, press it out against the rim, stroke and watch seasoned planks drink the shine from translucent paint, countless times as morning flows
the wood forms, mixing and shovelling, levelling heavy cement swells into clean lines and planes.
3
Squares of grey sludge have dried overnight and blaze like white sand in the sun. I haul heavy legs over the long week’s work, and there is this
into late afternoon. The last step is to step
away, to consider how the light falls, across and through what you have built
release, as though I had stepped out of my body and walked on air.
how clear-cut the edges
of shadows have become now, how they look like a blue print, stamped on the grass.
GEORGE AMABILE is a poet with thirteen books and over a hundred other publication credits, including The New Yorker, Poetry (Chicago) , The Globe and Mai l, The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse , Poetry Australia and Canadian Literature . He lives in Winnipeg.
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on site review 48 :: building materials
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