How many hours did they spend together?
What could the shadows on their faces reveal?
How many jokes did they crack?
How many sheets of steel grinded and welded?
How many bearings with grease repacked?
How many broken down machines have they revived –
often in the dead of night?
How many cold mornings on a jetty;
waiting on a trawler to slowly emerge from the fog –
it’s shattered gearbox in need of understanding craftsmen hands;
To be lovingly rejuvenated – cog by cog?
How many lunch boxes did they share
with greasy hands and oily faces?
How many family ups and downs did they share, by hearing – through factory noise and the bright sound of a falling spanner – the other’s words. Just listening – not knowing the answers?
How many times did the one’s eye catch the other’s
in a moment of personal triumph?
Or quiet despair?
How many times a wordless glance that simply says:
“I care”?
How many of us could take something from this?
Understand true comradeship?
How many of us will learn –
that be it at a spinning lathe or a boardroom table:
Trust, respect and LOVE at work,
is not just a fable!
How many…?
Fred Roux July 2018
