Studs Terkel: "Working is about the search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor."

Some people hammer, others nail,
everyone shovels.
Dig holes up and down,
trenches left to right,
build walls, floors, windows, doors,
all in the manner of people with work to do,
homes to build, calluses to earn.
Another theory:
people are musical instruments,
the universe is a tuning fork
in the octave of love.
Ahh, the layered complexity of our endeavors —
all our solutions running in place
or just swaying to the music.
Rubbed raw chafing against the containment,
or tattooed with scars of happiness
from the life given, the one made up on the fly.
Every day requires belief in a realm of miracles,
the mathematics of everything from nothing.
So we raise our voices, sometimes in unison —
field hollers, railroad chants, water calls
as we dig, dig, dig,
tune, tune, tune
all the way home.