August 2015
I am a Quaker, organic gardener, visual artist of paper cutouts, and a retired librarian. When I was a child, I worked on my Amish/Mennonite grandparents' farm during the summers — using old time equipment such as gravity-fed buzz saws; I also did blacksmithing and I painted hex signs. Over the years I worked for Habitat For Humanity building houses; I finished my 100th construction two years ago, and now, at 67, I am still at it — tiring out the 20-year-old volunteers. My forthcoming collections include How to Be Silent (FutureCycle Press), God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name (Aldrich Press), and Dylan Thomas and the Writer’s Shed (Future/Cycle Press).
Sometimes You Get a Blueprint
When you build, you have plans to follow,
but sometimes you have surprises.
When I started at Habitat for Humanity,
I never expected to be next to Jimmy Carter.
We worked together in Georgia for ten years
and all he ever said was hammer, nail, screwdriver.
He made his Secret Service men work, in heat
so bad it boiled the swamp waters. Volunteers
and the future owners built in a day: door frame,
drywall, plaster, wiring skittering around.
You get a feeling for tile grout, or roof tiles.
I had five more houses to go to the century mark,
when I left for a state that did not have the project.
Sometimes you get another project. We call it
a spiritual leading. I worked out a deal:
give me first time gang members
and I will teach them how to build
in exchange for commuted sentences.
The gang members had a choice: the thug life
of grilled metal teeth, tattoos like handcuffs
identifying them, street cred, and endless prison;
or me, a trade, a second chance.
Some went onto glory as a drive-by statistic.
When I passed my one hundredth house,
I noticed they were exhausted, pleading for mercy.
Sometimes you never know what you will build.
Sometimes it is more than vocabulary: mortar,
water-tight, flashing, door jamb. Sometimes
you are handed plans and are told: build.
When you build, you have plans to follow,
but sometimes you have surprises.
When I started at Habitat for Humanity,
I never expected to be next to Jimmy Carter.
We worked together in Georgia for ten years
and all he ever said was hammer, nail, screwdriver.
He made his Secret Service men work, in heat
so bad it boiled the swamp waters. Volunteers
and the future owners built in a day: door frame,
drywall, plaster, wiring skittering around.
You get a feeling for tile grout, or roof tiles.
I had five more houses to go to the century mark,
when I left for a state that did not have the project.
Sometimes you get another project. We call it
a spiritual leading. I worked out a deal:
give me first time gang members
and I will teach them how to build
in exchange for commuted sentences.
The gang members had a choice: the thug life
of grilled metal teeth, tattoos like handcuffs
identifying them, street cred, and endless prison;
or me, a trade, a second chance.
Some went onto glory as a drive-by statistic.
When I passed my one hundredth house,
I noticed they were exhausted, pleading for mercy.
Sometimes you never know what you will build.
Sometimes it is more than vocabulary: mortar,
water-tight, flashing, door jamb. Sometimes
you are handed plans and are told: build.
©2015 Martin Willitts Jr