"Labour of Love" by - The New Quarterly Digital Edition

This old porch is in need of a new skin,
so I set to work taking off the paint
which falls away beneath my knife and brush.
It’s tedious, like those old summer jobs
when I was still under another’s roof
and rule, made to scrub, scrape, paint and restore
faded houses and barns from dawn to dusk,
with bed and board the only recompense.
Yet this task has a different reward,
which I did not fully appreciate
until I caught that look—your telling glance
at the aging layers of paint and grime
beneath my hands and feet, and the clear need
to gradually remove all of them,
right down to the old wood that’s covered up
and forgotten—like those good memories
buried beneath the surface of our lives,
but poised to sprout with a bit of coaxing.
I persevere under the warm spring sun,
and the wood slowly makes its presence known.
It’s startling how new-made and fresh it looks
in the afternoon light, while the soft breeze
rustles against the chimes above your door.
I scrape and brush like a patient digger
at the site of an old, buried longship,
excited by what he’s uncovering
yet unsure of where it’s all going to lead.
I think of tasks that fill up a lifetime—
the labour of our hands, and head, and heart;
the traces, good and bad, we leave behind—
and how some things can end up lost or found
in painted wood or in half-painted lives.
Then I recall what brought me to this porch,
and what moves me to make it new again
under the gentle sun, while the spring breeze
sings its lovely song through those tinkling chimes.

Photo by Ray Shrewsberry from Unsplash.