Beyond pain
I strain, press, twist and the steel has my will at the edge that separates wood from wood and then as night separates day from day and year from year a tenon fits inside the mortise firmly gripped and held in place forever.
Beyond the presence of pain, through pain, I gain mastery over the wood and the tool. My hands hurt as any craftsman’s do much of the time in the pressure of my work, but no longer do I concern my thoughts with the pain for beyond this lies the treasure now emerged from deepness in the wood and soon I rest contented as the wood lies now in new and wrested smoothness.