Robert Stewart: The Hole
The first time I took a turn on a jackhammer, on a sewer-repair crew, the foreman told me to strap steel toe guards onto my boots. My boots already had toes … Continue reading
Darnell Arnoult: This Too Is Creation & Work
Moonlight freely wants its glory,
holy howling eyes singing
heaven’s blues.
Adrian Rice: Among the Lavender
Honeybees spend their busy day
hovering among the lavender
with constant co-workers for company.
Sandy Solomon: Diary from a Tomato Cannery, 1912
I walked part way home with a girl of ten
who’d peeled tomatoes from 6 am
to 6:30 in the evening.
“Things to eat is so high,” she said.
“We can’t go to school. We gotter work.”
Sandy Solomon: Casual Labor
The man at the front door wants work,
any job. Hand on the knob, I start
to turn him down, to swing the door’s weight
to, but then I consider my mother’s mother.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Sea Turtles Mating
To be amazed at her luck
or pity her trials
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Work
The father sanded the gunwales,the boy coiled the lines.
And I admired them there, each to his task
in the quiet of the long familiar.
