Poetry and Ax Handles

“Making an ax-helve is like writing a poem. The material is free enough but it takes a poet to use it. Some people imagine that any fine thought is poetry, but there was never a greater mistake.

A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down and slowly carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love. Else it is no true poem. “

From Adventures in Contentment chapter 5 The Ax-Helve, by David Grayson