By Charles M. Sumid Copyright 2025 Written 2004

In the drawer with wedding silver
this one waits.

My hand finds it in darkness.
Wood worn smooth
where thumb meets palm.
Blade thinned from many sharpenings.

How it cuts through morning bread.
The wrist remembers
what the mind forgets.

Steel moving through tomorrow’s onions,
through decades of December carrots.

The matched set hangs untouched.
Their edges wait
for tasks that won’t come.

But this blade has opened years.
Many hands
held it this way,
that rhythm of daily need.

I find their movements in my own.

When anyone visits, reaching to help,
I hand them any knife but this.

They pause.
They understand.

Nights like these I study the handle,
wood polished by years of work.
All grain lines, seasons survived,
meals that mattered.

The blade cuts through difficult days,
makes them manageable.

Steel against stone
prepares for tomorrow.

One day another hand
will wrap this knife in a dish towel.
No words needed.

The way rivers find their channels.
The way hands find their work.

What lasts is what we use completely.

This meeting of need and tool.
This proof that function deepens with time.