Page:Slabs of the sunburnt West.djvu/25

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The Windy City
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 footsteps of the jungle, the fang cry, the rip claw hiss, the slant of the slit eyes waiting.
Forgive us if we work so hardAnd the muscles bunch clumsy on usAnd we never know why we work so hard—If the big houses with little familiesAnd the little houses with big familiesSneer at each other's bars of misunderstanding;Pity us when we shackle and kill each otherAnd believe at first we understandAnd later say we wonder why.
Take home the monotonous patterOf the elevated railroad guard in the rush hours:"Watch your step. Watch your step. Watch your step."Or write on a pocket pad what a pauper saidTo a patch of purple asters at a whitewashed wall:"Let every man be his own Jesus—that's enough."
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The wheelbarrows grin, the shovels and the mortar hoist an exploit.The stone shanks of the Monadnock, the Transportation, the People's Gas Building, stand up and scrape at the sky.The wheelbarrows sing, the bevels and the blue prints whisper.
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