As always, be honest (but be gentle!  this is the first piece I've
written in months!)....

-------

  Time Honored Tradition

It is a Time Honored Tradition:
with patience and a blade,
a form is freed from a bit of wood.

Fine craftsmanship is born
in the hands of time, after all.
Fitting that this ritual should be called
a Time Honored Tradition.

A hand steady and sure
slivers away onion-leaved layers;
with movements warm and calm, emotionless even,
this is all a knotted, discarded branch says

in the hands that will grant wings to a dragon
that has lain nestled within the swirled grain
so long, waiting for that sweet moment
of flight:

"Spike needles, barbs thus shaved can lodge underneath skin.
Sharp blades moving so seductively close to thumbs can slice."
Yet the wood does not seem to be complaining,
only exacting its price --

Wood, like Human, can learn to master change
with this Time Honored Tradition:

patience
and a blade.
 

13 responses total.

        The poem mostly describes the prossess of carving, what's actually
being carved; the "Time Honered Tradion" of woodworking. That's fairly obvious
from the first stanza, third line, "a form is freed from a bit of wood" which
also reflects nicely the idea that all wood has a form already in it, so that
you're not so much creating the form as carving away everything that's not
it.  In fact that's also echoed in the fourth stanza, where it refers to a
dragon "that has lain nestled within the swirled grain".
        I like the the over all feeling of this piece, kind of peacefull,
folksy voice, as if an old man in the woods was talking to some young feller
about how to carve.  Prases like "onion- leaved layers" provide great images
too.  
        My only tripping point in this poem is the fifth stanza 

 "Spike needles, barbs thus shaved can lodge underneath skin.
 Sharp blades moving so seductively close to thumbs can slice."
 Yet the wood does not seem to be complaining,
 only exacting its price --

What is being quoted and why?  Also, the quoted part seems to be a change in
tone from peacefull to almost masachistic, with all the stuff about "moving
so seductively close to thumbs".  I don't think that's what's intended here,
but that's how I read it.  I think that what this stanza is saying is that
the knife is really sharp, it can cut people, but the wood it is carving ain't
complaining.  The meaning is fine, but I'd think about refrasing it so that
the tone fits better.  It ties in well to the next line "Wood, like Human(s?),
can learn to master change".  Actually, I feel that that stanza would be a
good one to end 
it on, since it ties back to nicely to the begining.
That's all, only a medium-length critique today.

Ps, I really did enjoy this poem, as I enjoy almost everything you post, when
you get around to it.

I don't agree with Josh-- I don't see any masochism or stark change.  
Rather, I see the subtle resistance of the wood, because, although the 
blade can cut, the only ways you will likely cut yourself is if the wood 
is a bit too hard or if the blade is dull (whoops, well there I see a 
discrepancy.)  How do I know?  Well, I've done a little woodcarving with 
blades myself.

I wish I knew where to find carving blades-- a lot of my old ones went 
dull or broke, and all I find now are chisels :P

Oh, I like the quoted bit.  I don't know _why_ those words are in quotation
marks, necessarily, but they 'feel right' that way, and I'd leave 'em.

Sorry, I ended my response before I meant to, but now I can't remember what
else I wanted to say.  This is good.  I wanted to say something about
"birthing images" or something like that, but now that I read it again, there
aren't any explicitly.  But I think something about this poem - again, I don't
know what - brings that to mind... which works.  

So, promise you won't vanish on us again like that? :)

I need to think about this one for a bit... 

Yeah, promise?

The quotations actually do make sense; that's what the wood is saying in
the hands of the carver.  And I say as much, in fact -- but the stanza
between the one that contans the word "says" and the quotation part is
getting in the way.  That's my only beef with this one, actually.  I just
need to find another way of putting it.  Read it again:


> A hand steady and sure
> slivers away onion-leaved layers;
> with movements warm and calm, emotionless even,
> this is all a knotted, discarded branch says    <---(see, there is it)
> 
> in the hands that will grant wings to a dragon
> that has lain nestled within the swirled grain
> so long, waiting for that sweet moment
> of flight:
> 
> "Spike needles, barbs thus shaved can lodge underneath skin.
> Sharp blades moving so seductively close to thumbs can slice."


        I'm thinking maybe something like,

 
 A hand steady and sure
 slivers away onion-leaved layers.
 Warm and calm, emotionless even,
 a knotted, discarded branch
 
 submits itself to the hands 
 that will grant wings to a dragon
 who has lain nestled within the swirled grain
 so long, waiting for that sweet moment
 of flight.

 And the wood seems to say,
 
 "Spike needles, barbs thus shaved can lodge underneath skin.
 Sharp blades moving so seductively close to thumbs can slice."
 Yet it does not seem to be complaining,
 only exacting its price --
 
 Wood, like Human, can learn to master change
 with this Time Honored Tradition:
 
 patience
 and a blade.



        What'cha think?

re Dan: heh.  no promises, ut I certainly seem to be trying. *wink*

No, I like the original more.  The second version seems to throw out the flow
of the lines for the sake of clarity.

Well, I like the second version more.

In the end it doesn't matter that much, it's still a beutifull piece, and what
_you_ like is the most important thing... Which do you like, by the way?

not necessarily; when read I could add the element of a pause.

I'll sit on it a little, see what I can hatch.  d=

Which do I like...hm... I think that it's a little run-on, and that makes it
hard to digest.  What I want to do is make it less strunbg together, make each
element easier to absorb for the reader.  Oh, and the quoted part, I would
like that to be in italics, if it were to be printed (but of course, PicoSpan
doesn't allow for that).

Perhaps something like

   ...
   so long, waiting for that sweet moment
   of flight; and says:

I also sensed a change of some sort at the quote; something about the 
fact that there was a different speaker, and the suddely spondaic as 
opposed to iambic text (I *love* spondees, for some reason.  :) made a 
nice break from the preceding material.  It was as if the half-formed 
wooden dragon had suddenly turned and started speaking.  :)

ack -- spondees -- I have no formal poetic training and thus don't know jack
aboutt he formal poetic structures...

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