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Child workers
children employed
to supply our flags
dull eyes like organ keys
pressed down
that could not be fixed
to whistle
but otherwise quiet
and will do as bid
the river is a letter
from an unknown hand
Poems on the topic: labor
Poems on the topic “labor” on Poets.by.
Industrial revolution
I spoke with coffee
like a dark ear of night
and went out
into the leaden street
men carried the weight of the fields
yesterday today and tomorrow
through the city
Gut
I observe how ordinary
is this miracle of a laborer
swallowing down into his belly
all threats and promises
like a better world
so truly round
and so little hurt to any man in it
Silent drunk
I lost my labor to the war,
my time to bed, my place
to a store of wine.
What a sad story!
I make one good thing:
a great quiet.
Colonized
we pay in good oil
for the visions they sell to us:
I now know
how blind I am
my thoughts are small and labor
against the night
Mowing
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Gathering Leaves
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Heat Stroke
One day in July,
Sierra Nevada
(sun unblocked, high, blazing)
—I was splitting and
stacking tamarack-rounds
for somebody
in town. Heat
came up
through my body to my head.
went blind. I was seventeen,
had learned by then to be
more embarrassed
than frightened
by affliction. I saw
just well enough
to stagger down to the general store,
See It Through
One should not have an orchard and
Not care for it; so she tries,
Even lurches from the depths of a chair
She's found at some thrift, pre-softened; from
Her house, warm or cool as she might wish,
Out into too much sun or too much rain; from
Under the kind roof of a porch she'd built,
Leaving tool after tool there to gather
Dust and webs, marks of a new will to
Neglect. Beyond the weed-bent fence, an
Orchard of sorts awaits her care, each
Task having skipped two years at least.
Hands grasp lopper and saw. She visits
Apple, quince, pear, plum, cherry, clipping
Vines, tall weeds, watersprouts, suckers;
Even designates branches for her stove.
Clearing the Knotweed
Commonly, this is done with herbicide.
Leery of that, she tried a chain saw. That was
Easy enough, but made fumes and sets fire to
All the earth's air over time. Electric clippers
Ruled the roost awhile, but that, we know,
In the scheme of things is but a longer tailpipe,
Neither the labor direct nor personal. She's
Going to have to simplify further. She takes
The hand pruner with her to the patch. It means
Her time in blighted shade, bending, will be
Extended, reaching to each stem in turn,
Killing with a snip and twist, dragging four or five
Not so much weeds as small trees outward
Or upward from the dry wash, toward hot sun,
Toward the roasting garden, into the paths
Sixteen
We plant fir
seedlings across
icy slopes.
Trees yet standing
scrape and worry
in moaning winds,
showering us with
bark and cones.
Will I see you
again, should one
of these fall
while my back
is bent?
One
Sleeves dripping
from my hike
through heavy
autumnal rains,
I find shelter
amid tall books:
drying my hands,
I find one, lifting it
down with care from
that high shelf:
prints, depicting
with love, hard
country lives —
sudden tears.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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