Elegy for a Carpenter’s Carpenter

in memory of Larry Haun, 1931–2011

I remember his hands, their wood gouged by use, the knuckles kin to burls––those hands

that did finish-carpentry with a small chainsaw as silkily as they threaded a sewing-machine.

In this forest of family, no matter how hard the rest of us grew, uncles stayed tallest.

Now in rainforest the first lies fallen. Uncle Redwood, shrouded in fog,

I remember how your emails always ended: “Send sunlight.” Someday one of us

will lay down your book, pick up a hammer, clamber to the roof, and say to a nail,

“I won’t lie, even he would have hit you, but better: once to set you, once to drive you home.”

Into a cloud of grief off the coast of Oregon, the land-sea breeze sinks a sixpenny slider,

a soft-steel glint that catches and flares.