Two Poems by Dan Rattelle

Rocking Chair

Come life, Shaker life, come life eternal
shake, shake out of me all that is carnal — Shaker Hymn

From rails to runged seat
of shingle-split timber
it’s woven like the rug it rocks on.

A thick switch of maple
hooked in place becomes
the arm, the brackets at the back.

Varnished with tar, it shines
like borrowed light from a fire
turned against itself,

dim coals collapsing,
going inward, impotent,
a thing so simple and settled-in.

Rolling Pin

Lathe-spun, a scrap of pine 
from the woodshop. Sanded, oiled, 
dusted with flour from Montreal.
It’s waiting at the bake board
beside the pitcher,
beside the mixing bowl. 
Its grains course and eddy.
I press the middle
and work along its length’s taper.
I scrape the crust off as I go.
It’s flawless, despite the knot,
an accident of growth
no workmanship could handle, 
black as the eye of a crow,
her tree marked out for timber.

Dan Rattelle is a New England writer, author of the chapbook The Commonwealth (Little Gidding Press 2020), and poetry editor at The North American Anglican. He holds an MFA from the University of St Andrews.