lester

connected meanderings
2006-11-07 12:25:21 (UTC)

The Graceful Iron Stool

The Graceful Iron Stool

The welder lady exclaimed delight at the old white stool,
curved and
Recurved gracefully, retrieved after Dad died from his old
Rambling shed and Mother gave up the country place so that
I brought
Those many things to this overcrowded workshop room still
dense
From weathered fence boards, scrap iron of all
descriptions,
Old papers, scattered files, even old tapes and the
Tandburg
Tape recorder once top-line, now clunky, heavy.

But back to that stool,
Once painted all white but now not much white at all,
though,
Galvanized beneath the paint, unrusted. As Mother saw it
lately,
She each time laughed, repeated, “Oh, that did such
terrible things
To my linoleum,” not noting those graceful lines,
contrasting
To the welder lady who liked that shape; hence her
exclaiming.

But once I’d welded too, and if lucky, will do it more. Oh,
I have
My limits: no cows, crops, tractors, acreage. But some
welding maybe,
And with this concrete workshop floor, I need not worry
about linoleum.
In some future time I may work to hear the Tandburg again;
old
Tapes play in my head, but they may err. Perhaps other
history needs
Correcting – what else fondly recalled as beautiful belie
old looks?
What other graceful lines once clunked?

Still I like that stool,
Feeling something to be said of romanticized old painted
iron,
Heavy though it is; I note – looking at it again – that Dad
must once
Have tried to weld on floor-protection bottoms, not quite a
success as
They angle askew. But I sit upon it now – it stands
steadily enough.
I perch atop this iron, curved and recurved, galvanized,
hopefully tough.

Russell Gardner November 5, 2006




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