(to Scott)

Your new home rises                         

Out of the old fire’s rage,                   

Out of the Big Sur                              

Mountain top’s                                   

Scorched-charcoaled landscape,         

Out of your heart’s destruction,           

The devastation of blackness,               

After the sudden, all-consuming,         

Ravaging flames—                               

When you lost everything.  
               

With you as a mentor,                         

Scott, your young helper,                     

Has discovered himself,                      

Masterly honed the skills                        

For turning timber                               

Into ceiling beams, door knobs,           

And perfect furniture.                          

You have even chosen to use              

The damaged remains                         

Of that ferocious burning,       
             

The leftover skeletons of trees,             

As if saying to nature:                           

I am one with you                                 

And I bring you into my life                 

Resurrected from a deadness,                 

To these sculptural forms,                     

To the needs of my everyday living.            

Like your dear friend,                            

Edmund Kara, the sculptor,                    

You are letting the wood        
                

Speak to you, letting                             

It suggest its destination                        

Towards its new shape,                       

To its completed skin-smoothness.          

The construction of your dwelling          

Grows slowly,                                        

The detailed craft and labour                 

Stretching the minutes in each hour.       

And as I leave                                         

Your unfinished poem of a home,     
       

I am humbled by your devotion                

To your dream, to Scott’s vocation,           

The application to a vision                         

That unfolds in your mind.                      

An inspiration to me,                             

A visiting Welsh poet,                               

A reiteration of my faith in hope,              

The human spirit unbending                       

In the face of despair,                            

And all of the windows offering        
    

The language of survival—                    

The fine artwork of light.                          

 

Peter Thabit Jones © 2022

Published in GARDEN OF CLOUDS/NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Peter Thabit Jones, 2020