Work in progress

Hands sowed this land with
work,

Those of peasants bound to sandy
soil,
Their voices freed on Sundays
singing
Hymns under a painted doom;

Those of hard faced men
hefted
To the factory floor, dying too
soon
In towns black as poisoned lungs;

Those of earnest young folk,
Planning the new factory; the new
town
That will stand on a hill and
wash
Work forever free from dirt;

Hands, first rough and then
smooth
Climbing a ladder down through the
years,
Capital and labour tattooed
On bruised knuckles as they
grasp
Endlessly for tomorrow
November 2012.