Poetry, of sorts: The SHED, the WIFE and the BED

<style> </style> Here is something I wrote and shared with IWCS and woodie friends a few years back, first published in World of Wood

The Shed, the Wife and the Bed ^©

Eugene Dimitriadis (Dec 1997)

(Shared with distant friends during a reflective moment, while cleaning out the shed of collected wood, a situation imposed by the sale of the house in Camberwell and the prospect of a new lifestyle in Neerim. Feb '04. Also, I had just returned from a cleanout of a deceased woodies shed with his wife disposing of his remaining treasures. An emotional moment I tried to capture. )

Like a demon possessed he chased and collected

all wood - endangered, wavy and fiddled.

His shed was long filled, each space was bulging

‘round where he stood marking, cutting and dreaming.

But the shed was now quiet it held no more fear

of lost thumbs or fingers or gashes … oh dear!

Many evenings he worked late, wood dust filled the air

"that shed his escape from real life" said her stare.

The sneezes, the curses, a "wow" or remark,

she knew how he loved those times until dark.

He valued the smells, touching pleasures unknown

to her as she waited, the grass still unmown.

Alone now, she missed those times we forget

o’ deserts, through forests and outback sunsets.

Not knowing a love of nature’s green treasures

would lead him astray, from trees to wood measure.

The silence ‘came louder, his bandsaw unleashed,

all wood filled the space in the shed he bequeathed.

It stood there, his shed, his dreams an escape

Defiantly full now, seemed it played back a tape.

"I’ll make works so beautiful, one day I swear.

My skills will be worthy - a woody fanfare"

such jewels, the most beautiful pieces collected,

recycled, re-valued, re-found, re-respected.

All crannies were filled till they threatened instead

to intrude on their lives, even under their bed!

"to keep it secure, I need to watch out,

lest robbers take, my wood here about".

True, she entered his shed, his world now and then

with coffee, to find him insane with the grain!

But the beauty he found was much like Zen,

the coffee went cold, and the cake! A lost friend.

Was ‘bout then, wood dust and the years

collected on memory, his wood and his fears.

‘till quietly one day he passed away leaving

botanical wonders from years of accretion.

She entered his "dust world", now softly spread,

unfinished, mysterious his spirit led

her to marks on some boards he excitedly found,

a tear fell, so softly on dust without sound.

Now freed of those boards, those logs of his passion

were hers now to do with whatever her fashion.

But years of collecting are not simply dispersed

new woodies to find, for her was a first.

Grandchildren still visit – the shed is a must

to visit, Pa’s ghost, "will he rise from the dust?"

Of the wood stacked, a system, only he could then fathom,

his values of "tidiness" were not shared by his madam!

The dogs walk ‘round that shed searching still,

they miss him, his smell, his wood that until

now had seemed a big problem for him

was hers to dispose, or burn ? - what a sin!

Those jewels in the shed, ‘neath the house and the bed!

now freed "to test their true worth" she said.

But lack of i.d. would result, if it could,

to become ordinary value for extraordinary wood.

It’s funny how this wood made hearts grow apart!

"don’t burn it" - disperse it and make a new start!

With these words ringing inside of my head

I was led to discover wood gems in the shed.

"What’s the moral" you say, "with the wood, shed and bed?"

Does it mean that "collectors of wood need to care,

more for partners and wives than the grain in the shed?"

yea, lest the capital, the collection, turn to dust and despair.

***********