What We No Longer Call By Name - Dirk Dunning

[Lawrence Robinson]

What We No Longer Call By Name


Once, the world was held together
by things we could name
without thinking.

Not a saw,
but a two-man crosscut,
rakers set shallow for winter fir,
fleam eased a hair to the left
because the grain leaned that way.

Not a hammer,
but the light upholstery head
that knew how to kiss a tack
without bruising the cloth,
the cobbler’s face broad enough
to persuade leather without breaking it.

There was a drawknife
that taught the hands
to listen,
and an adze that knew
whether it was meant for the face
or the side of the beam.

There were darning needles
with no eye at all—
only a roughened end,
enough to hold a thread
by trust and pressure,
so the cloth would never know
it had been wounded.

Hat pins long enough
to pierce a hand
if a hand went where it shouldn't—
eight inches of steel
holding more than fashion,
holding space itself.

Brooches that knew
how to gather fabric
without compromise.
Clasps engineered to release
only under deliberate pressure,
not accident, nor haste.

My grandmother wore these
in the '20s—
flapper, yes,
but also armed,
also precise.

Now we tear open
what velcro holds badly,
the burst and rip
of something that was never
truly fastened at all.

We had words for these ideas.
Fleam.
Kerf.
Raker depth.
Set.
Burnish.
Deburr.
Flare.
Blind-mend.

Small words,
precise words,
the kind that vanish first
when speed or economy 
replace care.

Now the shelves are full,
but the language is thin.

Everything is a tool,
everything is close enough,
everything is replaceable, discardable—
including the hands that once learned
why close enough
was never enough.

The curtains no longer meet.
Light leaks in where it shouldn’t.
Pins meant to join the dark
have no names,
so the dark itself is forgotten.

And I am old now.

Old enough to remember
when knowledge lived
in the wrists and shoulders,
when two men could work a saw
without speaking,
because the steel told them
when to pull
and when to yield,
because each trusted
the other had set his rakers right,
had read the grain,
had checked the fleam
before the first cut.

One mistake by either hand
and the blade would bind,
or worse—
kick back and take a leg.

So you learned to listen
through your wrists,
to feel when the other man
was tiring,
to pull lighter,
to give him time.

The saw taught you
that precision alone
was never enough—
you needed someone else
who also knew
when close enough
was not enough at all.

Old enough too to know
that what we lost
was not efficiency
but intimacy—
with wood,
with cloth,
with metal,
with artisans,
with time.

Society calls this progress.
I call it amnesia.

Because when you forget
how to mend invisibly,
you stop believing
things are worth mending at all.

And when the last words fall silent—
fleam,
raker,
drawknife—
it is not the tools that vanish.

It is the understanding
that a life, like a cut or a seam,
is meant to be finished carefully,
by someone who knows
when to use a blind stitch,
or when to remove just enough,
and no more.

I carry that knowledge still,
quietly,
like a well-set saw
hung on a wall
no one else knows how to use.

And when I am gone,
the wall will remain—
clean,
efficient,
and empty.

	- Dirk Dunning