Old Men Are Never What They Seem To Be Poem by Roy Ballard

I watched an old man finishing a chair
new-made of beech from some windfallen tree
with dowels and tenons all set fair and square;
no nail, no screw, entirely metal free.
You might have thought pure timber was his trade.
Beneath the seat he stamped his name, the date
and sat to try out what his hands had made.
I fell to wondering upon its fate
when frail of worm or rot, bound up with wire,
it failed to hold against some fat man's weight
and found its destiny upon the fire,
among the morning ashes in the grate.
Old men are never what they seem to be
and what's to come comes from their history.