Linocuts
HOW WE BUILT OUR HOUSE
~ for Leslie
We built our house of wind and salt,
of seeing and touching. Our shovels
bit in, our wooden-handled hammers
beat rhythms. We learned berm,
window spacing, roof pitch. We
chain-sawed joists to length, then
spiked with a kind of awe at our
dexterity. We felt the mystery of plumb,
and when rains blew in we smelled
the pine. The rafters became our heart
and we nailed high the green bough.
Now grace shines off the gray metal
roof and together we listen to the barred
owl’s call, watch the blossoming peach.
Thomas R. Moore