I didn’t take the walnut oil, linseed oil,

the tins of wax or my lathe and plane

when I closed the workshop door.

I left the grip of poverty on the bench

beside my mallet, whittling knife

and fishtail chisel with its shallow sweep.

I quit the craft my father had carved into me

when I was pliable as fiddleback grain,

left all at the threshold, except for the scent of wood,

a different scent for every tree.

Jane Clarke, who was born in Roscommon and lives in Wicklow, combines writing with her work as a management consultant. Twice shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Awards, she won the Listowel Writer’s Week Poetry Collection Prize (2014), the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition (2014), Poems for Patience (2013), iYeats (2010) and Listowel Writers Week (2007). Her first collection, The River, will be published by Bloodaxe Books this year