Love of Lines: Notes for an Apprentice¹ Shingler

Sara London

The injuries are small ones,
the blade（叶片，刀片） slips from the cedar³（雪松）
slat to the kneeling knee,
or the plane slides
off the shingle²'s edge
and shaves the thumb knuckle⁴（关节） .
Splinters（碎片） are surprisingly
rare, but when the hands
are cold, the hammer glances
the galvanized（镀锌的，电镀的） nail
and slams the horny（角状的） one,
pinching（箍紧，收缩） and blistering
the pellicle（薄膜，薄皮） . This
is the worst.

What we labor⁵ over,
a swayback（背部下凹的） beach house,
rests on a rheumatic（风湿病的） wharf,
our task to pluck
the worn wood scales,
add new bridgework, a shield
of George Washington teeth,
clamped against adversity（逆境，不幸） .
We begin with the shingle（墙面板，木瓦） iron
slipping it along the virgin
backside of loose dentures（假牙） ,
and pull so shakes fly off
in our faces, crack and splinter,
the sharp dry notes narrating
fifteen-plus years of weather.
Like dog years, this is ancient
beyond thinning and brittleness⁶.
Where we find rot, we chisel⁷（雕，刻） out
the grainy porridge（粥，糊） and fill
the gap with new pine,
thick wedges（楔形） for warmth.

Wood chips in our eyes
make us cry a little,
but mostly we keep right on
through the small disasters
to batten down before nightfall,
our eye on the suture—
horizon stitching（缝合，固定） low
grey sky to our dark Atlantic.
Tar⁸ paper (or a new slick
synthetic stock that doesn't rip
and bears a name too New Age
for song) is whack-stapled
to weary ship-salvage boards,
top layer always over bottom
to keep rain water from seeping
back to wood. Then the sweet
new cedar shields we extract
from fresh bundles and fit,
side flush to side
and hammer in twice, milk
oozing from flat four-penny
heads, the soft white fur
of mold, like premature⁹ infant
fuzz, rising from wet wood
into the crisp autumn
turn of air.

Chalk lines are best
when workers hold each end,
one reaching to the center
to snap, the blue powder
mapping a million points
along a line so straight
the day's doubts are deleted
in its sure direction.
But a course of shingles
followed by another and another
parading up the house—these
hands saluting¹⁰, soles of tree,
puerile（幼稚的，天真的） soldiers sweet
as puberty（青春期，开花期） , pressed side to side
so no one stands taller,
though some are fatter,
"hippos," and some are "weasel"-
thin, their bodies set
like brickwork so no two seams
meet—all the bathos of the week
is buried here.          Lines
link lines to what we love
in these long hours, the wood
wine of it, the weighted plunge（投入，跳进）
and smack¹¹ of hammer and nail,
the hard grip, hammer handle
to palm, the knock knock knock
answering back from neighboring
houses and street, wood and nail
and wood, even the smeared¹²（弄脏的） blood
marking the rough facade¹³.
We swing and drum the day.

                    *

And when we finish, the lines,
stacks of horizons, paths to
an exacting¹⁴ place, meeting at trim
and window, foundation and roof,
are what we've made. Lines
where cold, rain, wind,
sleet, sun and snow end. Lines
we step across the street
to judge, and when they're fine
they're fine, and when they fail
they haunt. Order is easy to
plan for, hard to achieve. This
is what houses are about—
planes that meet along degrees
we trust. Lines that say,
The weather is up to you.

We unfasten our nail aprons（围裙，皮圈）
as the sun sends its light
into China's day. Toss
into the toolbox tape measure,
plane and knife,
hammer, chalkline and coping
saw, and head home to husband
or girlfriend or dog, or house—
house, bless it, though it
doesn't save us from ourselves.
And when we sleep, it is
the sleep of lines well made,
or lines that are not well,
marginally mis-measured,
but in our dreams slanting（倾斜的）
earthward or rising toward
some inevitable¹⁵ convergence,
the confusion of infinite touch,#p#分页标题#e#
and so we return like some
floating angel to the house
and remove by glance alone,
five fresh courses
to correct our quarter-inch mistake.

When we wake, the error
dissolves into morning,
compulsion（强迫，强制） keeling into
the undefined plane of day
and its incorrigible¹⁶（不可救药的，积习难改的） knots.
In a year the high wheat
of the wood will fade to blue-grey,
the seams will open a crack,
for the wood has dried and shrunk.
The smell, once fecund¹⁷（肥沃的，多产的） as forests,
will be salted, and somewhere else
staging assembled, a house
stripped, a dog amused
at what trouble humans go to,
dangling（悬挂的，摇摆的） their booted feet
at the face of a house
as the hammers hound the quiet
of day, as the afternoon arcs
around our deep imperfections,
and we measure with expectation
another course, another line.