(Season to Season)
I love to touch things that give me life and livelihood; I've built and carved in wood, and revered it, since I can remember. When I'm holding something that precious to me, I try to draw back to a quieter, more careful time, tune into the master builders and carpenters who were my childhood heroes, and the younger ones who are walking in their tracks. This little series of questions came together when I was working on the film "Coaster," about the building of the schooner John F Leavitt.
For Malcolm and Lloyd and Gene and Cecil and Orvil and Nick, and to Havilah too, to whom I owe the ten fingers I so proudly wave.
Is there no change from season to season
Save the wearing of sea on stone,
Save the wearing of wind on water,
Save the passing of man alone?
And is there no change from living to dying,
Save the passing from place to time,
Save the passing from form to forming,
Save the passing from dream to dream?
And is there no change from dying to living,
Save the wearing of tool on beam,
From formless to form, from taking to giving,
Dream to question,
Question to answer and dream to dream?
Woodworker's Litany is recorded on the album A Rogue's Gallery of Songs for the 12-String and is also in the songbook One to Sing, One to Haul