Shovelers

Metallic scrape on asphalt
from which this set of soiled atoms,
lifted, are freed to join the wind's chorale.

Hushed mouths on grizzled, fatigue-ridden faces
and faintly whispering urban voices
accompany this priestly laborer's procession,
his charge of earth a tome of arcane intellect
whose contents beg an ancient question.

What is? and why? For whom sought I?
Is there truth at all, or only an insidious, universal lie?

Though not forsaking eternity, this man knows
his role in now's significance,
the meaning of this mass of soil upon a lever in his hands,
how his motion gives to all the earth,
how strife, in part, are breasts of life
a gentle touch of light against a coldly wind-swept parking lot.