Life Full of Effort
/My father was a whittler. If you believe, by trade
He made good work. Beautiful wooden objects
One day, my father gave me a task.
To whittle a log into my likeness
He taught me how and it took me days.
I had to labor on the task he gave me.
A task that I had not decided for myself
But I did it. I did it nonetheless
Between the times of my chores
And between the times I slept
My dreams were of how it would look
And my idle waking thoughts were consumed
On picturing how they would work
To fulfill the final picture
This log was the first of my handiwork
It was not perfect, but it was in my likeness
And it was good
So when I had finished
My father brought me outside in the forest
Me and my likeness, my finished prize
He made me dig a hole in the ground
And to find stones to lay all around
In the hole and circle of stones
I gathered wood, prepared a fire
During the process I was nonplussed
Then he brought from his pocket tinder and matches
He made me light the fire
The fire that would become the grave for my likeness
He had said two things
As the fire crackled, sounds of my crumbling soul
He said the world would break you
So you better not make your life all about you
And you better make what you do count
I watched the fire till my face went brittle
From the salt in my tears
He had left me to ponder what he said
And his words had the opposite effect
I became a recluse,
Prizing my work above all and everyone else
A whittler like my father
I never left my town nor my house
Until one day a kitchen fire burned it all to the ground
Then I understood,
The deep dark cuts I had carved
Into my hollow and emaciated soul
By blaming my father
For the fault of not heeding his lesson
People came out with gifts of food
But I had no one to talk to
I then went to my sister’s
Because I needed somebody to demand
To demand that I recover
In the end, it was still my choice...
So take it from a man
Who has sat on a stool all his life
Just carving blank wood into more nothing.
I know what it’s like to have your weak legs
Be swept from beneath you
Feeling there’s no strength to lean on your elbow
And hoist yourself up
But hopelessness doesn’t intimate weakness
Sometimes, it’s just laziness
Now come, let's clean yourself up.
By Adriaen Thibeault
From: United States