This isn't a poem, it's a rant. I'll do something with it next week, but it in the end it is unlikely it will look anything like this:
The Count
These days I count sand, hunched like a 'possum, one grain at a time. My tweezers neatly hoover, transporting each spec to the next pile. This position is a significant upgrade to my previous job counting salt. Salt counting is a far more labor intensive task--as much care must be put into maintaining the proper levels of aridity as is put into the actual counting, lest the salt granules moisten and stick together in clumps. The clumps have to be broken apart and spread to dry, then raked back and forth to re-create the proper size of particles before being shoveled back into the pile and counted again, one grain at a time.
Counting sand may seem less glamorous than counting salt, (sand doesn't have half the tricks or powers of salt--salt preserves food, sanitizes wounds, and can crystalize. Salt can also alter the boiling and freezing temperature of water. Sand, on the other hand, may reflect the sun or slowly wear away rock, but its effects do little for humanity beyond landscaping plastic beaches) but counting sand features significantly increased job security. Rock will always be crushed and worn by the wind into smaller and smaller sediments. The inventory of sand in the world will only increase with time--it is unlikely that sand will ever be "used up." Salt may be eaten or soak into the ground. Salt can be lost, and so I am content to enter work each morning, tweezers in hand, grip prepared to gingerly transport one bit of sand at a time. Ready to count.
No comments:
Post a Comment