What the Plane Takes

I set the board across the bench and sight Along the edge — a hollow near the end The plane is heavier than getting it right I pass it once and watch the shaving bend Away from what it was, a single curl That holds the shape of what I just removed The grain beneath is tighter than the whorl Inside a walnut burl I planed and grooved The plane takes the rough And underneath there's something true enough The plane takes the rough I wasn't looking for it — but there it was I slide the sole along the surface, slow The blade is set a hair above too deep I back it off — a quarter turn — and go Again, the shaving thinner now, to keep The figure underneath from getting scratched My hand reads what my eye would miss: a knot Below the surface, not yet touched or matched By any pass. I'll work around that spot The plane takes the time And underneath there's something down the line The plane takes the time I wasn't counting — but the light has moved The shed smells like the inside of a tree That fell before I learned to use this thing My father's plane — the mouth worn wide and free The iron pitted where his hand would swing It passes through the wood the way a hymn Passes through a room of people thinking About their week — it smooths what needed trimming The plane takes what's rough And something patient waits below the stuff That didn't serve the board I wasn't building anything — just a drawer One more pass and hold it to the window The grain goes gold where it was grey before I set the shaving on the pile below A hundred curls that used to be the floor