Daily missive breaks into the weekend for Saturday the 28th of January.

“You are a natural,” she said.

I’m not sure what she meant

Or what she wanted me to say

Did she mean that I didn’t have to work

Too hard

Or that things came too easily,

Without the need for sweat

An honest working man’s toil

Grafting until blisters formed,

Blood was spilt

Or that I was somehow saved

From being caught up

In the tantrums of the tortured,

Tying myself up in knots

For the sake of a few choice words.

How far does it stretch

This naturalism, I wonder?

There was a time when

I could use a coarse file

More properly named a ‘Bastard’

Flattening and honing a surface smooth

To one-thousandth

Of an inch

Until one cold afternoon

A cloud of iron filings

Blew into my left eye

Frightened I would lose it

Barely able to see the doctor clearly

As he anaesthetized the surface

And stabbed repeatedly

With a sharp scalpel

And a pair of tweezers

Easing the metal fragments out

Though some were set

Quite deeply

He saved my sight

Although I don’t see well at night

But then, who can?

It seemed quite natural that I should cry

The tears came very freely

Some who used a saw did,

Or lose the will to do a good job

Even when

It was time to use a hand tool.

I don’t blame the cast iron

It seems quite natural

To be wary of the wind

To stand clear of drafts

And open windows

When throwing up some dust.

I still see the scars on my left side

And it seems now

That everywhere I choose to go

Small dots go before me.

It is no joke

But is as perfectly natural

As seeing a host of bright stars

On a clear night

When the moon is low enough to touch

And the scars that dance

Across my eyes

Remind me of a chorus line

Of fireflies.