Searching for Each Other's Souls

by Fred Voss

Working 10-hour days in this machine shop we put on our COVID-19 pandemic masks
like strangers aboard the Titanic
thrown together to strike an iceberg and live an historic
tragedy
and we stare
over the masks into each other’s eyes
safety glasses fogged up with our breath
dazed with vague suffocation
we just wanted to run our machines
bend our elbows pulling on wrenches
say good morning
talk about the weather and stay
to ourselves
like we have all our lives in these shops as the time clock ticks
and the gears turn and the Colorado River carves the Grand Canyon
another 16th of an inch deeper
into the earth
and we stare over the masks into each other’s puzzled
lonely eyes as another ledge
of ice falls off the melting polar icecap and another species of butterfly disappears forever
in the Amazon basin
and Trump looks into his mirror making sure each orange hair on his head
is perfect
and the basketball and baseball games grind to a halt like never before and we
begin talking about the state of the earth
instead of who won the game
we can almost feel the earth turning under our feet
the page in the history book
we could fill
if we poured into the street
protesting
as we look over our masks and stare into each other’s eyes
now
man drops out of the trees and learns to walk erect now
Christ hanging on the cross shakes the world now
we have pulled our last drop of oil out of the earth now
the trees are burning Nero
is fiddling Pandora’s Box
opening Marx puffing
on his big cigar Thoreau content in his tiny cabin in the wild woods
beside Walden Pond now
the hammers and the wrenches and our grandchildren’s futures
rest in the palms of our hands
as we stare over these masks deeply into each other’s eyes trying to know each other
for the first time
and find an answer
as dizzy in these masks stumbling across this concrete floor
we try to find our balance and breathe
in a new world.

Tension building here before election. Bernie's right: we've got to save our democracy. Not to mention the planet. Tired of the heat here in California and wearing the mask all day, 10 hours in the hot humid shop seems a mild but well-worth-it torture. Looking for the light at the end of the tunnel - Fred.