Harry Van Der Weyden, Morning Labor on the Seine
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

The great best lumbers on the river's near bank
while the spires emerge from the other side's fog,
the day is breaking as sure as the backs
of the men assigned to these early chores –
the barge must be shorn of its cargo
as swiftly as a cow heavy with milk,
profits and meals await the release
of potential energies invested upstream.
The grunts and the cries of the workes
remind another passing by of other events
best left concealed in a different mist
he himself had woven to simply survive,
he quickens his pace to place some distance
between himself and the men, and the crane,
and the shadow of a man in a young French boy's
hollow bedroom door.