"When A Hammer Sings . . .

Its head is loose."

You know, that ringing piiiinnnnnggggg when the hammerhead hits metal or concrete or even very hard wood, that noise that tells you to seat and secure the head before it flies off and hurts something or someone. (What's that saying about anger and breaking things? Don't fly off at the handle.) That pinging is singing.

Harrison and Kooser, from Braided Creek: A Conversation in Verse or something like that. I love that slim volume, but the subtitle isn't quite coming to mind.

I had a student once whose father, a carpenter, wrote poetry, published poetry. I always wondered if she let herself--for that's how it felt, that she wasn't letting herself--what poetry she could write. As a bystander, I knew she had something to share, observations to deliver. And I'm sure she's gone on to do that, whether or not she's producing poetry specifically.

Carpentry is another form of poetry, after all, and so's every other craft.

I considered getting hammered tonight, so I could sing, but I'm diving or kayaking or something tomorrow. I'll settle for my basic articulate (or semi-articulate) self and save singing for my birthday, the anniversary of Lord Byron's death (just missed his birthday), or something. Hangovers hammer back, after all.

Still, if you need to get hammered, Flor de Cana is not a bad way to go.

Mostly, I like how Harrison & Kooser's original verse gets me thinking--and smiling--every time: "When a hammer sings, its head is loose."

For some reason, rereading Elmore Leonard's Unknown Man #89 makes a lot of sense to me right now.