Toolmaker
David Stephenson

In most cases I don’t know what they’re for;
I get dimensions and a datum scheme
and surface finishes and shank details
and sculpt them out of metal or carbide.
Then I write “fragile” on the shipping box
although the buyer bought them to cut steel.

I’ve read that language and the use of tools
distinguish human beings from animals,
for people unclear on the difference.
Some chimpanzees make tools to use themselves,
but not in bulk to sell for leaves and fruit,
yet commerce doesn’t prove humanity;

before time, in a world of stone and bone,
a flint axe head was first rubbed smooth with sand,
and people have ground axes ever since,
at times to the exclusion of all else.
So maybe the decisive difference
is just an inborn urge to sharpen blades.

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David’s notes: “I worked in high volume manufacturing for many years. We used a lot of specialized tools tailored to specific operations, so I worked quite a lot with toolmakers. Toolmaking is a meticulous craft that attracts fussy, detail-oriented people. Historically, the first big advance in the field came at the boundary between the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, when people started polishing the edges of chipped flint axes with sand to improve edge strength and cutting
efficiency. The edges on contemporary tools are also ground and honed, albeit with better abrasives and machinery. I was musing on this, and what it would be like to sculpt tools for a
living, when I wrote this poem, which was published in Blue Unicorn and is also in my collection Wall of Sound. I’m a pessimist, so I gave it a bleak twist at the end. Recent world
events have not brightened my outlook.“

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David Stephenson is a retired manufacturing engineer from Detroit, and the editor of Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

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Image credit:

Polished flint axes in the National Museum of Denmark. Source: en.natmus.dk

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Toolmaker David Stephenson

Toolmaker
David Stephenson