Craft

"Andrew Davis's first collection of poems, 64 linked sonnets, is an unsentimental, autobiographical meditation on how he came to his twin callings--poetry and woodworking--and what craft, "the mastery of a manual art," feels like from the inside. The cover photograph of one of the poet's chairs, with its incised lettering, embodies his preoccupation with the turning of words into things. His installation of furniture and carvings is on exhibit at the Musuem of New Mexico, Santa Fe (through Juned 25)"-American Craft

SONNET 62

The idea is this: when God made things
He had to clear a space within himself,
To shove over, to push himself aside,
To allow a space for created things to be.
Also, by extension, im-perfect himself,
Accept, in part, the status of a craftsman,
With all the attendant certainty of error,
And forfeit, in part, the role of deity.

The last is my extrapolation, but
The first I lifted from a label on
A sculpture in a museum; the which,
In turn, was borrowed from the cabalists:
Stolen, lifted, borrowed, so it comes,
The embrace of imperfection: Zim-Zum.