The Tinkerer: Biography

1990-something — Present

Neither skilled nor unskilled. Not so much a lack

of love for things finished but an eye

for too much that needs finishing. He knows

what he builds will not stay forever

built, but does not find the hardware

of that truth sufficient to hold

back his hammer. When he hears

the song sundered, the grammar

lilting left, his tune is troubled. He is deaf

enough both not to know what went awry

and to try. Regarding this and that,

here and there, the rattling bucket

of loose what’s and why’s, he does not find

them irreparably sundered. Why not me?

he often wonders. Sometimes he weeps

when he works. Laughter, too.

The pointed rage of a dropped screw.

No one calls it craftsmanship but good

enough in a pinch. The further beyond

his means the need the more piercing his itch

to open the hood and have a halting

say. No matter how awkward

the angle he will not throw it away:

It is what clutters the rag-tag shed

of his life and his most redeeming quality.

L.R. Harvey Poetry