#60

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/john-berryman/3593

I’m afraid I’ll always find the minstrel stuff, and the parody of African American voice, to be a bit more than I care to swallow. This one puts me off. On other days, I might set that aside and peer into the poem, reminding myself that times have changed, irony, etc. But I have another idea.

A couple years ago, my wife and I spent a weekend in an elegant old inn in central Kentucky. This place has a magnificent collection of antique furniture. On our last morning, I spent a peaceful half hour or so out in one of the wide, open hallways on a velvet couch while Betsy was in the shower. I soaked up the deep hush and stillness, the green light filtering through the tall, wavy glass windows at the ends of the hall, the broad dark-wood staircases, the lush dark red carpeting, the ticking of the old clocks, contemplating a particular piece of furniture. It was a sideboard, pre-Civil War, and completely hand-crafted. A little sign on it informed guests that it had been built in Kentucky by a slave, who had gained renown in his day for his skillful and elegant cabinetry work. You knew it was his because he incorporated carvings of pineapples in all of his pieces. His owner, of course, sold the pieces—which were much sought-after, even back then—and kept the profits as rightfully his. The names of both men are remembered, and some details of their lives are probably available to anyone who cares to learn them, but 150 years later, it’s mainly the work done by this fine artist, and slave, that still matters.

The Fruit of His Labor

He must have smelled of the soapy sweetness of fine

Cherrywood, and black walnut’s loamy
Perfume—like ground coffee, soil, the glossy
Hides of fine horses, steak on the fire,
Oaky bourbon’s caramelized char, fiery

Pungent in the barrel and the glass. Daily, dust

Must have settled on his dark skin,
And gave his black hair a powdery thin
Dryness that his wife may have guessed
Was his pride of toil. But I can’t begin

To know if the fine smells of fine woods

Meant pride alone for a man whose daily work
Was so elegant. Was black walnut’s dark
Sheen and dark fragrance the word
Of satisfaction to a man whose black

Skin meant his fame and art were owned?

The pineapples he carved on this dresser
Hint that solemn pride would not defer
To a slave owner’s claim on such renown,
Lathe and knife, saw and plane, a truer

Testament than name or money gave—

Such bitter honor in a carved pineapple!
His work is done, his work endures to tell
He’s forever an artist now, not a slave,
His labor fluent in the silent hall.

KZ