To Make the Crooked Straight

Jim « JP » Hansen via Compfight

The last few days I've been visiting the family cabin in the north woods. A small place with an outdoor privy, it was built from local tamarack and spruce logs in the late 1940s. While it isn't fancy, it is filled with all sorts of memories of my extended family. Here's a poem about my grandfather that tries to be about more than a can of old nails.

To Make the Crooked Straight

On a rusty metal shelf
that stood on the dirt floor
of the shed behind the house:
three rusted Arco cans
filled with bent nails
pulled from a thousand used boards,
and, also, with hope --
to save the unsavory
to make the crooked straight
once again.

– Steve Peterson