The Wood Carver

  • Year: 1920
The Wood Carver
Returned Soldiers in the workshop of the Kangaroo Point Hospital, 1917 (SLQ Image)

 

                 by Alice Gore-Jones
 
Men move about the workshop clumsily
Some limping on a crutch, some with their hands 
Seeking lost brushes, or the hidden, key 
Of a bright pattern for their raffia strands;
But he who loved with eager youth's delight
Swift action, and the leaping sea wind's call,
The dimpled rush of dawn, the star of night;
Sits in a corner moving scarce at all. 
 
With chiselling  tools, his lean, brown fingers guide
Each fine intricacy of curve and line;
The curious pause, half wondering, at his side,
Watching the growing splendour of design;
While he would give it all again to be
One with the wind, the sun, the morning sea.
 
                                      Australasian, Melbourne, 5 June 1920, p6. 
 

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