How Day Is Done Poem by Tom Courtney

Habit struck my hand today
I felt its sting - I pulled away
It said: get up and grab your drawers
Shower shave and close the doors

Your daily task looms large ahead
(I left my other self in bed)
What is this way? How can it be?
A shape walks on - some form of me

I am the nineteenth fabricator
I build the fifteenth elevator
I sport the cables, cut the rod
The channel's ready - I give the nod

Another workman pulls a lever
This metal box could rise forever
encasement taking one and all
the fat and slim the short and tall

To cubicles and conference rooms
these neatly-girdered plate-glass tombs
They write and check and test and measure
all we call our worth and treasure

Count and tag and tie and tote
til plan's complete - another mote
to water-in our magic castle
The way is rote, the manner facile

The day is done - I’ve done my time
King Lear, Macbeth have played their rhyme
The play's complete. The time is when
I’ll sleep, get up and go again