The hammer rebounds in any case:
but still, you can tell by touch alone
whether the blow was true, whether
the nail drove straight. The kick
is slightly different in the hand.
(Clouds fall back from the ridgetops
and the mountain appears: shadowed, stern,
unsnowed and unshaven, all blue-gray,
unreachable by sun.)
Enough of stories that hit just wrong,
too soft or too hard, that slightly bend the nail
or glance.
Give me just one that hits fair, let the steel
sink like that one perfect dive
into green water
forty years ago and more, when
coming up for air, and looking
into the high snowfields, you said
this much, exactly this much, no more.
5 comments:
Beautifully balanced, Dale, the metaphor serving the meaning perfectly.
Like the expansiveness of time and space--even when the focus shrinks, there's still that sense of unreeled time and long vistas.
Rereading, of course...right now, after lunch, this bit is making me temporarily unfit for the world of commerce.
"Give me just one that hits fair, let the steel
sink like that one perfect dive
into green water
forty years ago and more..."
This poem slipped in cleanly
Brilliant. And oh how exactly right the image of the hammer! How often I've bent the nail, glanced, hit too hard or too soft.
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