The workers built this state, the country,
Not the unions. Not some party.
Not some distant calling in the wind.
But hand took up hammer or plow
And propelled it through land and air
To strike the earth and fashion it well
Springing forth a bounty standing tall
While some voice in a box in fractured lives
Lays a claim for the produce raised by labor
Of one and one and one and, then again, one
Building a bridge that says a city makes
Or a monument that points to a politician
Or a golden calf who blazed the trail to Zion
With one flash of a photographic opportunistic

Show of  driving a spike or digging a hole
One shovelful deep into trains and towers
While the many ones who led us out of Egypt
Are paid a paltry, starving wage and sent away
From all honor and praise and slightest recognition
For building, each and every one, this state, the country.

Copyright © 2009 by C. P. Klapper
written December 6, 2009