In the wake of the reelection of Mayor Jackie Warner and Commissioner Pat Edwards, the historic election of Kenjuana McCray to the board along with the return to the board of Bryan Marley, I share this poem by Edgar Guest. It is dedicated to a voice of hate and divisiveness that has flooded Facebook in this election cycle with vicious personal attacks and perversions of truth. Here’s to Mayor Warner and the new board of commissioners and the hope they will unite to exemplify the high ideals shared in these words.
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam, and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman: “Are these skilled--
And the men you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave me a laugh and said: “No, indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care
Measuring life by a rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds to a well made Plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker, who walks the town
Content with the labor of tearing down?