The Kinship of Tools
When we bought the farm,
the old man shook my hand,
his grip still strong
from a life of steady labor.
We parted then and later that day
I pulled open the drawer
of a weathered workbench
in the barn to find a collection
of rusty tools reposing there,
unused in many years.
I laid them out to the light –
eleven drill bits, a file,
five box wrenches,
a ball peen hammerhead,
thirty-nine Allen wrenches,
and a can opener –
for beer or motor oil, or both,
when crawling out from under
the tractor on a hot day in August.
In the distance of time,
I see him tinkering patiently
with stubborn old machinery,
wielding the biggest wrench –
inch-and-a-half box, forearm long –
feeling what he cannot see,
locking on a large nut,
torqueing until it loosens,
fingers unscrewing the rest of it.
He reaches for the one-eighth Allen
between thumb and forefinger
to fit the tiny hex screw,
cupping his hand as it falls.
Those tools, when plied with skill,
are animate, wed to purpose,
and wait another to use them well.
Thomas’ latest collection, Tongue to the Anvil: New and Selected Poems, was published by Restoration Press and is available here.
Learn more about Thomas on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo: Brian Josefowicz/ flickr.com/ CC BY-ND 2.0)
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- The Kinship of Tools by Thomas Alan Orr - September 21, 2023