THE STEAM-SHOVEL
There was an unsightly arm
And a cupped hand with three crusted fingers.
The hand sank into earth and bulged with it:
Then swung aloft in sudden exaltation. . . .
And the seamy, blotched man beside me said:
"I've stood here for two hours watching that steam-shovel—
Can't seem to get enough of it."
I stood for hours, but I did not see the shovel.
I saw the man in smirched blue
Jerking a rope at the precise moment
When the laden hand dipped over a freight-car—
His strained wet face, and his eyes pressed to specks.
I saw the knotted-up man at the engine,
His face dead and dented like old tin.
(Life to him is the opening and closing of levers,
And heavy sleep.)
When I walked away the two men were fixed paintings
In the little art-gallery of my mind,
Where portraits are weighed well before admitted. . . .
The steam-shovel?—I had forgotten it.
[75]
