With Access to Tools

Dana Wildsmith

Description

In the same spirit as the iconic The Last Whole Earth Catalog: access to tools, Dana Wildsmith’s With Access to Tools offers a means for navigating a new time of change. Opening with a series of odes to traditional tools, each tool is inextricably bound to the hand and heart of the worker. The book then shifts, as has our world, to cyber tools which work at a physical remove that echoes the pandemic’s societal disruption. The book concludes with persona poems offering a note of hope through the strength of individual cerebral tools.

How to Sing

 

To praise my tools, I wear them out. My hoe’s

blunt tip is history in 2/2 time,

a simple chopping meter down the rows

of years that rose and fell like breathing. I’m

not finished yet. Whoever is? The work

that weeded me still needs me keeping watch

for what should grow and what should not. The dark,

the daze, the drench, the drought. I doubt I’ve brought

to fruit two-thirds of what I’ve planted—dreams,

a child, two dogs for every decade—roots

at last on this old farm I seed and weed

each spring as if it mattered. I love my tools

like friends deep-rooted through our history,

rounding out another year with me.

Contents

I. Tools for Home and Garden

How to Sing    1

Sighting    2

History    3

Seed Starter, February    4

Rain Barrel    5

Spirit Level    6

Ladder    7

Garden Hoe    8

Hammer    9

Swing Blade  10

Rubber Mallet  11

Seam Ripper  12

Cast Iron Skillet 13

Milking Stool  14

Door  15

Comealong  16

II. Office Supplies 

ebook  19

Thumb Drive  20

Emoji  21

Text  22

Zoom  23

Scanner  24

Photoshop  25

Pandora  26

Alexa  27

Google  28

GPS  29

Password  30

Dark Web  31

Malware  32

Delete  33

III. Tools for Mind and Body

Coping Mechanism 37

Patience  38

Storytelling  39

Comfort  40

Courage  42

Sight  44

Silence  46

Prayer  48

 

Acknowledgments 50

About the Author 51

Sujets

• Women Authors
• América
• General officer
• Poetry
• General
• American

Informations

• Publié par: Madville Publishing
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781956440386
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Also by Dana Wildsmith
Alchemy: Poems
Our Bodies Remember: Poems
One Good Hand: Poems
Christmas in Bethlehem (poetry)
One Light: Poems
Jumping (a novel)
Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South (an environmental memoir)

Copyright © 2023 by Dana Wildsmith
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
Requests for permission to reprint or reuse material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions
Madville Publishing
PO Box 358
Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Cover Design by Kimberly Davis
Cover Photo by Olivier Le Queinec for Shutterstock
Author Photo by Don Wildsmith
ISBN: 9781956440379 paperback, 9781956440386 ebook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944383
For Wesley Scoates and all the Scoates men who were and are masters of tools And to the memory of Terry Kay
Contents
I. Tools for Home and Garden
How to Sing
Sighting
History
Seed Starter, February
Rain Barrel
Spirit Level
Ladder
Garden Hoe
Hammer
Swing Blade
Rubber Mallet
Seam Ripper
Cast Iron Skillet
Milking Stool
Door
Comealong
II. Office Supplies
ebook
Thumb Drive
Emoji
Text
Zoom
Scanner
Photoshop
Pandora
Alexa
Google
GPS
Password
Dark Web
Malware
Delete
III. Tools for Mind and Body
Coping Mechanism
Patience
Storytelling
Comfort
Courage
Sight
Silence
Prayer
Acknowledgments
About the Author

I.
Tools for Home and Garden
How to Sing
To praise my tools, I wear them out. My hoe’s
blunt tip is history in 2/2 time,
a simple chopping meter down the rows
of years that rose and fell like breathing. I’m
not finished yet. Whoever is? The work
that weeded me still needs me keeping watch
for what should grow and what should not. The dark,
the daze, the drench, the drought. I doubt I’ve brought
to fruit two-thirds of what I’ve planted—dreams,
a child, two dogs for every decade—roots
at last on this old farm I seed and weed
each spring as if it mattered. I love my tools
like friends deep-rooted through our history,
rounding out another year with me.
Sighting
When Calvin Edwards ran his cattle fence,
he kept an eye to depth and spacing, not
to how I’d see his fence posts as they lost
a century of cellulose to winds
and August storms teasing out their grain.
Each walk, I see a little less of post
and more of swoops and swirls that cost
the post’s integrity but let it gain
a sculpted loveliness that rests in what’s
not there. The years between the farmer’s days
and mine ghost those hollows time has made
in Mr. Edwards’ work. Sometimes I stop
and sight a line from weathered post to post,
cinching then to now through what’s been lost.