Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Gerard Van der Leun
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Thank you for this video!
Two things, the amazing spirit of Ken is so inspiring.
Second, I am so thrilled that people take the time and effort to make A Green and Green home.
As a woodworker I had heard the name Green and Green but did not know what it was all about, so thanks. Also thanks for your wonderful story about your adventures with your late brother. It brought me a heartfelt smile remembering my boyhood. Finally, as a forty year fan, your tribute to Van Morrison was wonderful!
….what a friend
After watching this Ode to Excellence, I’m not ready to walk away from my rude and crude wood & metal work, I’ve always been kinda a proof of concept type of smith, -but I have to admit I’ll be paying at least a bit more attention to finish details.
Scott Wadsworth is a treasure. And I’m in awe of Ken Jordan, his friend and inspiration, who despite a stroke paralyzing his left arm, was able to do so much and helps the viewer understand the magnificent house in Greene & Greene style which he built by hand.
More Essential Craftsman: https://www.youtube.com/c/essentialcraftsman/videos
Keep up the good work!