Five Poems from “Journal of a Laborer”

By Thierry Metz, Translated from French by Alex Niemi

June 24th. —The architect came back. I think of his
blueprints. One afternoon I read through the boss’s copy: a true
book. Everything is there. Everything we have to do is written
down, finished, complete. You can imagine the work. But is it
really a complete book? Where are the characters? The teams, the
words and gestures? Who will speak to us of the unfinished state
we always inhabit?

    The laborer only has a few words to even approach it.

    Time—work—reveals men to us, but do men themselves
have time to reveal what takes place behind the scenes, where
everything is still left to be done?  

    It crosses the worksite: the turbulent vein that captivates
thirst, diminishes and inflames it. Sometimes the pickaxe runs into
it and the rainbow springs forth, enchants whoever happens to be
there, reveals in his hands the gift of uniting the source and heights
that make the day. And further beyond that: its memory. Seeds and
lichens.

    I am the underground tributary of this hand. Its spray and its drift.

    July 3rd. —The pickaxe is less talkative on Fridays. We can
feel the weight we’ve been carrying all week in our lower backs.
We can feel how close we are. These are the last meters before the
break, before getting back to the picture book clutched in a sleeping fist.

    Work of a ferryman. From one shore to another, on the raft
of a given word, but also an order. No goods; only stones, rubble,
earth, a whole underground that sheds light on the smallest
movement, that transmits it from laborer to laborer.

    I like to believe that one day, maybe, a nameless god will sit
on this small pile of earth, take a seat in the illuminated tomb of
my movements next to the everyday words, simple songbirds.
He’ll catch his breath a moment, then set off again toward
whatever is happening in the deserts, where men and their
worksites are.

“Friday!”

That will be his name.

    July 8th. —Stones pile up around the scaffolding. We’re
guaranteed several tons to move, load.

    Ahmed is working with Alain up above, on a narrow bridge
of boards. They found young pigeons in a nest on a ledge. The
boss prowls below. Louis sorts through the metal bars, the
supports. The arm of the backhoe excavates. I go down, wield my
pickaxe. The moment has only our gestures to reveal the
inexhaustible.

    And to illuminate it: our hands go forth like torches in the
afternoon.

July 12th. —The friend is back: chess player when he’s not
working and stonemason when he has the time. We carried a small
table outside, a game, some wooden pieces.

    – You playing white?

    – If you want.

    A huge red rooster is perched on a rock not far from our
tree. 

    – It’s almost like he’s curious.

    – Who knows?

    Before the game, we ate salty and sweet; we drank wine,
then we gathered everything we could to construct a silence. A
silence that would last a long time, at least until the streetlight hour
when voices, smashing their cages, fly from arch to arch.

    We drifted in our chairs until evening, then, like seeing land
from afar, or a village, a man approaching, a door, a meal; we went
back inside.

    A last look at the canopies we can never truly know, a final
appeal to what remains outside, forgotten, elusive: we could hear
the birds taking off in the night like a retreating song.

    Inside, I looked at the friend under the brutal light of the
bulb: he was smiling. It was as if he’d just arrived, bringing me
something: a handful of earth or a handshake, some leaves.

    Yes, that’s it: a few leaves in a man’s hand.

About the author and translator:

Thierry Metz (1956–1997) was a French poet and laborer who worked in construction, masonry, and farming. He won the Prix Voronca in 1988 and the Prix Froissart in 1989. He first gained notice in 1978 when the poet Jean Cussat-Blanc published his work. Metz wrote poetry between jobs and published over a dozen books during his lifetime.

Alex Niemi is a translator, writer, and bookbinder. Her translated works include The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books, 2020) and For the Shrew by Anna Glazova (Zephyr Press, forthcoming). She is also the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant (dancing girl press, 2020).