The Canner

Down at the bean factory I still remember The way my father walked Searching the ground like a wagon wheel To balance the load of his mind. Then the quick appraisal, the incisive touch, And the grading machine like a balky mule Would hit the right rhythm again. His men respected him Because he worked in the dusty clamor of noon And dreamed by night, Wasting neither the twisted turnip leaf Nor the freckled fruit, And expecting the same from his partners. Every seed had its place, Every hand and eye its responsibility. Wherefore the rising hum of wheels at dawn If not to correlate earth with sun? Every can was canned right Or not at all.

What was human life anyway On this old stubborn, sprouting cinder? Must the son of man forever be a sluggard, A thief and a beggar? Did not summer come That winter might be better preserved against? Consider the ant, the bee, and the bear and squirrel! Was a tomato shed nothing but a whorehouse With a whistle on it? That was why, when the stroke came, After my father had merged the final trifling detail— “I’ll bring you some more buckets soon—” With his vision of what a Company could be On the level of love He was mourned as much by his youngest field hand As the gray-bearded Chairman of the Board.