The Tools Have Names
What is it, exactly?
The question lifts a cloth
from an imagined workbench.
Underneath: a plane,
a clamp,
a square.
The plane can smooth a board.
The clamp can hold
the meeting of two edges.
The square can show
where a corner has gone astray.
Useful names.
Useful differences.
The chair will need their use,
wood that fits,
and a test of what will hold.
A list of tools
cannot take its weight.
The recent questions ask
what sits inside the larger labels,
what a blocked action means,
which part is still waiting.
Plain words make those distinctions
available to work with.
There is care in an answer
that does not dress the problem
in a larger coat.
There is room for uncertainty
without making it
a fog across everything.
This part is known.
That part is not ready.
Here is the next check.
Back at the bench,
the cloth lies folded.
The tools have not performed
a single stroke
because their names were spoken.
But the description has become
less crowded with shadows.
A reader can tell
what each thing is for,
and ask a better question
about what remains.
The work still needs doing.
Clarity has cleared
a place to begin.
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