The sound of a power saw soothes me

It reminds me of home

Of my father’s toughness

His rough protective carpenters’ hands

Those firsts that I knew had been moulded by the jaws of skinheads in the seventies

The safety we felt when he was snoring in the room next door

It reminds me of the long hours working in the blazing Australian sun

Of the travelling

Of coming home broke to save again

Of the sweat

The mud

Of lost loves

And tear-filled WhatsApp phone calls in the car before work

Long distance love

Goodnight and good morning texts as I reached for the barrow

Girls I fucked on benders an hour before digging post holes

My twenties evaporating among concrete slabs and pine frames

Of raspberry lollies in the glovebox

And Bobby secretly handing me Viagra’s on Friday mornings

Of Eddie and AJ

And walking in the rain from Mordialloc station heartbroken

Writing letters to her parents

And Reading books on the train

Listening to red sails in the sunset as I sped home

Sam and I sleeping on the roof in Bourke St

Simmo sitting next to me while my leg pissed blood

The shitty jobs spent dreaming of being able to use my brain for money

It reminds me of transient friendships

Beautiful people I once knew

Bricklayers

Plasterers

Iranians

Turks

Afghanis

Louie and Joe smoking cigarettes and clumsily jiving to

Chuck Berry

Good men with good hearts

Working like dogs to send money home for their families

It reminds me of alcoholics and banter

Of drifters with prison tats and bowie knives in their backpacks

And apprentices with eighty thousand-dollar Hilux’s

They will never repay

Of classic hits on the radio

PBS blaring in the cabin

And of the word ‘cunt’

Thrown around so casually I forgot how ugly it was

Sometimes when I walk past a building site

I smile at the memories of my youth

The honesty of the work we did

Its simplicity

And I respect the harshness of these environments I grew up working in

Tough men

Pirates

Jailbirds

Craftsmen

When I hear the sound of a power saw at 7am

Howling over the sleepy suburban rooftops

Interrupting hundreds of Vegemite breakfasts and weather reports

I roll over and imagine the smell of the saw dust

And of the wooden off cuts gathering on the floor

The measurements scribbled all over the plaster

And the lists of the day’s jobs

Conversations that begin with ascertaining football loyalties

And the endless shit talking

I miss those days

I miss the gruffness of the men

The hard exteriors that protected gentle loving souls

Their intrigue as we strolled onto site booming Indian chants

on the pocket speakers

I miss the comradery of hard manual work

The afternoons I spent counting the hours down on my fake omega watch

I miss the heat in those portaloos

And watching the dirt slowly circle round the drain as it oozed out of my hair in the afternoons

The moments with Matt in the truck

Speeding Gonzo style down beach road listening to Desmond Decker

Two Don Quixote’s high on audacity

Glimpses of something greater

Moments of true serenity

True oneness

I miss the swims at lunch

And the freezing winter mornings where you couldn’t feel your fingers until 9am

Cursing yourself for not getting an easier fucking job

Mostly I miss the romance of it all

The sound of a power saw reminds me that there is a beauty to harshness in life

And a kind of grace among those who’s’ edges seem rough

It reminds me to be grateful for moments as they unfold

And to appreciate the friends we meet in strange places along the journey