I want to be a carpenter,
To work all day long in clean wood,
Shaving it into little thin slivers
Which screw up into curls behind my plane;
Pounding square, black nails into white boards,
With the claws of my hammer glistening
Like the tongue of a snake,
I want to shingle a house,
Sitting on the ridgepole, in a bright breeze,
Taking great care that each is directly between two others.
Spruce, cedar, cypress.
I want to draw a line on a board with a flat pencil,
And then saw along that line,
With the sweet-smelling sawdust piling up in a yellow heap
at my feet.
That is the life!
Heigh-ho!
It is much easier than to write this poem.