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Glass Letter Cutting

This is the cutting out of glass letters, and includes the selection of the glass, and cutting, bevelling, and polishing. This is the most skilled branch for men and the best paid. The forms of letters are drawn on a sheet of paper; the apprentice has squares of glass which he places over the drawn letters and traces the shapes on to the glass. The form of the letters having been traced on to the surface of the glass, the squares are sent into another department to be gilded by girls; this done, they are returned to be cut into shape by a skilled workman. This part of the work requires great skill and care. The letters when shaped are passed on to men to be smoothed, rouged if necessary, bevelled, and polished. The smoothers, bevellers, and polishers, all sit at tubs containing water, and do their work by dipping the part on which they are working into water and holding it against a revolving wheel.

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the evidence is in the shapes
pictorial emblems slowly revolve
towards simplicity and abstraction
to approximate the sound of thought
a secret power in harness
to transform the ancient world

but why didn't he write
she wondered under what shackles
are the hands that caress
so easily bound before papyrus
Your horizontal roots of life render
much that was once impossible

there is tenderness and death
an epitaph for the afterlife
but so much is transparent
as plain as the blank page
the letter is an explosion
fragment of broken glass