All Hands In
Video and poetry performance for the Natural Building Alliance Conference
(excerpts below)
October 2021
“…There is a moment at some point in every build when the outside becomes inside.
When the structure, though not complete, begins to contain.
To hold us after all the holding we have done of it.
The handfuls, the bucketfuls, the wheelbarrows, the truckloads of materials
held and then holding…”
“…It was my father who told me once that some people don’t believe that rocks have a consciousness.
And he would know best, having suffered the granite kiss more times than he could count.
He used to give me a tape measure every year for my birthday,
Like some ruler marking time…
I never thought I’d be a carpenter.
Never thought I’d spend my evenings picking slivers of wood out of fingertips.
Laying on the floor nursing an aching back the way he used to do…”
“…How many rooms in the house for children who won’t remember what it was like before the fires?
How many shelves in the kitchen for food that can still grow in drought?
Should I build a smaller bathtub?
Or one twice as large so that we all may be in it together?
The same tub, the same boat, held by porcelain curves…”
