Classic Poem

Wordless, he is whetting a knife.
Sun already going, he's still whetting it.
Pressing the back blade and the front,
and changing the water, he's again whetting it.
What on earth he wants to make,
as if he did not know even that,
with split-second concentration on his brow,
he whets the knife under green leaves.
His sleeves gradually tear,
his mustache turns white.
Fury, necessity, or innocence,
or is he chasing an infinite sequence
simply, prodigiously?