On Building Dovetailed Corners With August Wilson

On Building Dovetailed Corners With August Wilson I

Dove-tailed corners
A father’s advice on well-built furniture is good to remember--
(Heed)
“It’s those little details that only God notices”
Hidden misericords on medieval benches
Resting perch for tired ecclesiastics
Mid-tierce or matins amens
A high hallelujah of Latin and you hold that syllable a bit too long
A yawn in God’s house
Gargoyles only the dove sees cooing high above the city
one shiny patened slice of architectural folderol
A buttonhole perfectly stitched with ruby twist
(Hidden under the flamboyant Czech bohemian glass button)
Ah, August Wilson knows the perfectly finished dovecote
Or the plowed field that from above is a plumb line to God
My grandmother won’t let me shortchange the art --
(Perhaps that hem that is just uneven turned up material)
Blasphemy
It honors neither the fabric nor the craft
And that is the key –
Pithy intention
He cried that keening moan of knowing
"Limitation of the instrument"
II
It's the dance of creator and creation --
That double loaded brush of Chinese calligraphy
Painted in mind before brush and paper mingle
No excitability here – pause
Square that shoulder
Fret that Sufi song
Hurl hegira and intensity to the four corners
Spin incense and prayer upward on the moon and star of Mary
Arch that Amish framework of plan and commit
Like the keystone in a well-made arch
This dove-tailed detail bespeaks measurement
Delineation and love of the highest order
Even God planned (both fearfully and wonderfully)
That home of his shadow
Covenant of carry and submit – ark of shape and content
Seraphim adorn its four corners and
Knit cunningly of gold
Ten tefachim in length
Tempered with four square connections with the Shekineh
A rod, a hook, and voila –
Connection –
Neatly pinned down with conviction
And all seated in a nice mercy seat
August Wilson's workbench positively hums
Neat chips of wood,
Mitered corners
Carefully chosen wood grain
Sanded tidbits gleam
Ebonized wood and inlaid veneer
Oh, this is the fiddly stuff of love
And art like a dovetailed trinity
Resides in hand, head, and heart
Threesome of predilection, patience and patter
And this, I do know, is built on mused ebb and flow
That constant swim and rhythm of pen
Keystroke keen or pencil sliver gray with neither earth nor heaven’s gate-
No, this is the dovetailed box
Human with that heart beat turning and spinning
Echoed in 10 plays that spoke to me in human
Human because I was . . .
I was born in Gary
Grew up in Pittsburgh and then . . . the south
Strange songs grow in me too
And I felt that keening rhythm in Wilson's jazz,
His front yards and back yards and open and closed fists
Know this -- in heaven he heaves
His hands stretch across the wood
Caress this and that moment held and he opens heaven's gate
Bangs out a new rhythm for that stuff of love
That perfection of the instrument now humming God's name.