By Blaise Kielar
When you hear the trees singing above the screens and grind of modern life, you know what to do.
Go deep into the woods on the Full Moon to find a clearing. Stand in the center. Bow to the glowing eyes that watch you. Hear the wind on your skin.
Select a long stick. Snap off the side branches. Salute each cardinal direction. Let your favorite vowel shape your lips, slowly giving it breath to break the silence. Crescendo until the trees echo, until the moon smiles.
Stop.
Bathe in the silence. Scrub moonlight into every pore. Allow your chosen wand to lead you to the tree whose sap flows in rhythm, whose heart harbors keening as well as joy. Let both hands fondle the ridges of the bark. Tap it as you would a church bell. If it rings with sighs, cut it down and drag it to the drying shed. Regale it with tales of its future honor as you cut it to thickness and to length. Stack the boards with spacers so air can circulate.
Wait.
Watch the white wood begin to yellow. Sing to the boards every day of the sun and rain you can still enjoy. Console them as their moisture fades.
Listen.
Seek to awake them with your knuckle. One day a board will sing under your tap. Bring it into your workshop. Breath its perfume as it inhales yours. Let it rest. When you split it, regard the rough rectangles to let stories emerge. Remember them. Plane the two edges which beg for union, grain to be bookmatched forever as lovers.
Prepare.
Heat the hide glue, still made from creatures with four legs or fins, based on recipes notated by the Mesopotamians almost ten thousand years ago. The simmering water wafts animal smells through your workshop. Close your eyes and inhale deeply to invoke those moonlit eyes around the clearing. Join the halves and clamp. Revere this wooden mirror as it reflects a luthier’s dreams and desires.
Begin.
On the New Moon, hover your hands above the wood. Feel its warmth. Feel the coolness. Let your pores release moonlight into the pores of the grain. In the pale glow, test the sharpness of each gouge, chisel, plane, and knife with your thumb. Now your song may begin.
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Blaise Kielar’s essay in the 2023 North Carolina Literary Review received a Pushcart Prize nomination. As well as writing, he performs traditional jazz on violin and clarinet. His music retail career began in 1978 and culminated in 2016 by transitioning Electric Violin Shop into the first worker-owned co-op music store in the United States. He has sought to raise the world supply of smiles and laughs by posting a Joke of the Day in his front yard since April 2020, now online at Substack https://blaisekielartosmile.substack.com and https://blaisekielar.com.