Paraphrasing Jacob Riis - pipTalk Forums

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

Open Poetry #27

Paraphrasing Jacob Riis

Tim
Senior Member

since 1999-06-08

Posts 1794

0 posted 2003-07-12 10:09 PM

Toils the cutter of the stone,
In the quarry all alone,
Sweat running down his chiseled back,
From the searing heat of sun's attack.
Blow after blow his hammer falls,
Echoing off quarry walls,
A hundred blows in rhythmic beat,
He hammers on, knows not defeat,
Not a crack, no fissure shows,
From relentless cutter's blows,
Again he strikes, the rock is split,
From the force of the cutter's hit,
But the cutter knows that it was not,
His final blow that cleaved the rock,
But the hundred blows he'd stuck before,
As he raised his hammer to strike once more.

I came across this quotation of Jacob Riis in our church bulletin and thought I might give a shot at adapting it poetically.

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing on it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

1 posted 2003-07-12 10:49 PM

One never knows when the final blow will be "the one"...
'tis good to use that knowledge, wisely...
and with discretion.

Well done, Sir.

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.