Twist

A warp dried in in a prideful twist like a fist clenched in the face to resist another. The long plane rides the swell and clips off stroke-on-stroke all opposition and takes down the proud to a low point.

Then comes the haltering of the clip, clip and the faltering stroke that jars the man's arm, his wrist, his hand, his grip, and a final 'swoosh' sounds the victory to bring the matter to rest beneath the plane's truing sole.

Subdued now, the wood lays flat to the workbench top, smooth like glass beneath tracing fingers and the worn off tips of the man's hands.

The palm rests face down and waits, searches for a pulse and then lifts the board to the squinting eye, head cocked to sight along its length for straightness and meets the gentle sigh, the slow breath of contentment.

The man flips the board, measure its length in a short gaze and takes the crayon to mark its proven face. The vise grips, an iron jaw takes hold and the man raises his plane to determine its course on the wood once more.

The light glints in flashes between the saw marks as ridged ribs in valleys lie passively to either side and roughness becomes subdued like the flickering of an old film reel snapped on a big screen.

Each push stroke lengthens the narrow band as the peaks lower and then there it is, that sudden stroke, the lost thing found, that tells the man of the wood's yielding. The light rests full length as a swollen river its determined course for lower reaches.

The plane now rests hanging from a limp arm and then the hands wait for a caught breath in the lungs to quieten the pulse and stay the beating heart's pump, pumping back to the steadiness of a life-long rhythmic beat.

Once more the man lifts the wood to a half-cocked head and casts his squinting eye along its length and the eye agrees the settled matter of trueness and there he makes once more the mark that proves his effort.

Success seems close to the man holding now the saw and switched from the plane and he rips the wood to new widths with the long and measured strokes of a master. The even kerf defies wandering to keep its steady path along the line in passaging through the wood's strong grain and parts off the waste no longer wanted.

The foot returns to the workshop boards beneath his feet, the knees straighten, the knotted shoulders slump to hang once more in new release from the heavy and steady working. The saw returns to hang from the wooden peg above his head and the fingers of the man search the saw strokes now recorded in the rough-cut wood.

The wait continues for moments, and once again the gathering of the breath, the steadying of the firm, strong pulse beat restores a rhythmic peace. So it is for the man who works his wood by hand in a search for harmony through the cutting edges of his tools and the shaving off of all excess before the joints are made.