Leo's Tool & Die, 1950 <br /> <br />In the early morning before the shop <br />opens, men standing out in the yard <br />on pine planks over the umber mud. <br />The oil drum, squat, brooding, brimmed <br />with metal scraps, three-armed crosses, <br />silver shavings whitened with milky oil, <br />drill bits bitten off. The light diamonds <br />last night's rain; inside a buzzer purrs. <br />The overhead door stammers upward <br />to reveal the scene of our day. <br /> We sit <br />for lunch on crates before the open door. <br />Bobeck, the boss's nephew, squats to hug <br />the overflowing drum, gasps and lifts. Rain <br />comes down in sheets staining his gun-metal <br />covert suit. A stake truck sloshes off <br />as the sun returns through a low sky. <br />By four the office help has driven off. We <br />sweep, wash up, punch out, collect outside <br />for a final smoke. The great door crashes <br />down at last. <br /> In the darkness the scents <br />of mint, apples, asters. In the darkness <br />this could be a Carthaginian outpost sent <br />to guard the waters of the West, those mounds <br />could be elephants at rest, the acrid half light <br />the haze of stars striking armor if stars were out. <br />On the galvanized tin roof the tunes of sudden rain. <br />The slow light of Friday morning in Michigan, <br />the one we waited for, shows seven hills <br />of scraped earth topped with crab grass, <br />weeds, a black oil drum empty, glistening <br />at the exact center of the modern world.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/drum-3/
