foreman

. . . ode to Mike Weir

You can't imagine how unfortunate you are
to have met me,
for I'm impressed with your hard work and focus;
having praised you more than once
to the big Boss

I been thirty years climbing, lifting and hollaring;
basically just getting the job done, an' on time.
Making decent money which I send back home
to Donegal for reasons of my own.
And there one early morning in winter
you show up with your new tools
at One Chase Plaza, waiting in the cruel wind for the sun to rise.

You're not a young man,
an' none of us could watch you walk the beam
without some guilt worked up for fear
that you'd fall
and each would have to live his life
knowing.

But that you stayed the day, each day
to pack your spud and harness for the evening
earned you some small piece of my respect
and here your sorrow.
For I saw something I could learn from you,
a way of speaking about the damn cold
like it were fine reading or a radio program
and I distrust them both.

So the months passed like this
where I no longer cared about the peculiar swing
of your hammer
or your backward hitches tied to impossible loads
of planks and braces
swung out over the city;
over the gang six hundred feet below.

I just enjoyed having you around
and excused your manner for your person.

No, it weren't something you or me could change
when I got caught and fired
from the work I done for thirty year or more,
and were disgraced;
yet that I liked you more made it the worse
to shake your hand
after I kissed the ring for my pension
and a pardon.

For your sake I could only snub you, wanting
that I had never taken to you from the start,
'cause you who were so much to me
are my ever shameful reminder
of just how cold a New York winter can be.

copyright Jeff Thomas 2005