It should come as no surprise that a tradition rooted in the skill with which someone wields a knife in order to craft something from wood is in decline. The man on the Clapham omnibus or riding the Paris Metro would be clapped in irons for daring to display his dexterity with a lethal weapon in a public place. No matter how calming such an innocent distraction is to both whittler and spectator, the perceived threat makes the art of whittling a rural preserve. Journey to the Basque country (or the country that has yet to be recognised in that vicinity) and porizaijlaza, as whittling is known, is practically de rigeur I should imagine…..
What all this has to do with anything, least of all poetry, I’m not quite sure. But I’ll probably locate a whittling poem without too much searching.
Whittling Words – John Tansey 2007
Whittling words
Sitting, slumped in a chair,
On a wooden porch
Under the sun
That, moving slowly, like a brushfire
Across the hot afternoon,
Burns the underbrush, the dead leaves,
Of my depressive thoughts,
Leaving an open clearing.
With nothing done and nothing left to do!
I am absorbed by the moment
And open to each one trailing after:
Echoes of the same one sound
Come from the whittling of such words,
like a piece of wood;
Shavings, that fall to the ground
As so much crumpled pieces of paper.
It is in the shaping, the carving,
The very paring down of fat;
That the sculpture, itself, disappears
And the essence of nothing is all that remains
In the palm of my red, raw, open hands:
This gift that I, humbly, give to you!
odespinner 