

	Edward Hirsch wrote this poem about an experience in Doville

amy storrow

All day I've been trying to write
about the work song and the rhythmic origin
of poetry, but I couldn't concentrate

because the dog kept barking
at four or five hands from the museum
tearing down the metal car port

and shouting at each other
as they took turns jackhammering
the heavy concrete in our back yard.

I wanted to say something about the pull
and push of an oar, about hammers and anvils,
about sea chanties for hauling up sail,

but the rambunctious noise filled my head
like a dentist's drill and the jack-
hammers slowly turned our court yard

into a floating island of white stones:
my wife wanted a fresh green lawn
and a garden with crape myrtles.

I just wanted to hear Huddie Ledbetter
singing his version of Take This Hammer
on a tape I ordered from Folkway Records,

though I had to wait until I snaked along
through rush hour traffic at three p.m.,
picking up our son from school.

I had a splitting headache and a deadline
and a boy who didn't want to hear prison songs
since he was living in his own prison,

but when we got home the hammers had stopped
and the workers were heaving thick stones
into a wheelbarrow, grunting and laughing

and calling to each other in a soft music
that syncopated their bodies in the late sun
and sounded like Take this hummer--huh!

so that the two of us started to hum
and sway in tandem, trailing the leader,
our bodies hypnotized, our voices joining in.