Creature Comfort

This evening there was a road crew
in the streets of a colonial town.
They blocked traffic and began work at dusk.
The sunset against the faded red bricks
made the scene–and the big-bellied crew–
look like guests at a late-day garden party.
It appeared that one man ran the excavator
while the rest looked on,
the audience of an outdoor theater performance.
Their mundanity and at-odds presence
made me want to cry
and become one of them.
Never did laboring over asphalt and drains
seem so appealing–just a step down from the divine.
More than anything, it was the unspoken comfort,
the unrecognized camaraderie,
that made these humans glorious,
made them creatures I wanted to embody.
Or maybe it’s just that I forget I am perceived
and felt seen by them.