Human Chain
Human Chain - meaning Summary
Labor Remembered as Release
The poem begins with the sight of aid workers passing meal bags and moves into the speaker's memory of hauling grain sacks himself. That labor is described as difficult but satisfying, because each shared lift briefly releases the body from strain. The poem treats work as a human chain of cooperation, and ends by suggesting that true letting go is rare and may come only once, at the end of life.
Read Complete AnalysesSeeing the bags of meal passed hand to hand In close-up by the aid workers, and soldiers Firing over the mob, I was braced again With a grip on two sack corners, Two packed wads of grain I’d worked to lugs To give me purchase, ready for the heave – The eye-to-eye, one-two, one-two upswing On to the trailer, then the stoop and drag and drain Of the next lift. Nothing surpassed That quick unburdening, backbreak’s truest payback, A letting go which will not come again. Or it will, once. And for all.
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