I learned to sign my work
somewhere hidden in a wall
or the back of a cabinet,
my name and the date,
so one day another carpenter
would find me,
to pass the legacy
to another generation.
I wanted everything I built to last
one hundred years.
Some of my work has not endured.
Some of my early work
was built on sand; some constructed in weeds;
only after many indignities of carelessness
did I learn to seek foundations of granite
and attention to time.
I look back upon the number of my days,
the walls I stood,
the roofs I framed;
I have spent the expanse of my body
in making things,
calling forth structure from wood and steel,
amassing a fortune of memories making
cabinets, doors,
windows, floors,
walls and ceilings.
Do these monuments justify my energy?
I wonder who, for instance,
sleeps under the roofs I built?
Are they dry? And safe?
Are the foundations of my family steady and robust?
Are the walls of my friendships plumb?
What is my life made from
if not the corridors I have built
between my burdens and my loves?
Thom Brucie has published two chapbooks of poems: Apprentice Lessons, poems exploring the dignity of labor through the expression of craft, and Moments Around the Campfire with A Vietnam Vet, poems reflecting some experiences from the Vietnam War. Irene Koronas, Reviewer for Ibbetson Street Press, named Moments “the best chapbook of 2010.” Individual poems have appeared in such journals as: DEROS, The San Joaquin Review, The Southwestern Review, The Steinmann Arts Festival, Capper’s Farmer, Pacific Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, and others.