ManicDDaily

Yard Work is Hard Work

Stephen Colbert, amazingly, made an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee Subcomittee on Immigration last Friday, testifying on issues related to illegal migrant farmworkers in the U.S.  Colbert’s alleged expertise on the issue arose from one day spent with migrant laborers in which he learned that farm work is “hard.”

Colbert’s testimony is fascinating on many levels; a few that especially struck me:  (i) his chutzpah in appearing at all (to highlight the issue with his celebrated bump);  (ii)  his chutzpah in maintaining the Colbert “persona” (the narcissistic, jingoistiic, know-it-all, conservative talk-show host) throughout the testimony, even when it did not seem much appreciated by his audience; and (iii)  his chutzpah in making an oddly sincere and thoughtful contribution to the debate.  It’s all pretty crazy; the aftermath too.

In the meantime, I had an independent, and far more pampered, experience of agricultural “work” this weekend.  (I hesitate to make the comparison to either Colbert or migrant farm workers–my experience was as much in the nature of exercise as work and completely voluntary.)  But, it gave rise to a draft poem.  (Note that the competitiveness at stake is not with Stephen Colbert.)

Raker’s Progress

Yard work is hard work;
raking makes for aching
even for the frequent
grass-comber, but for the grandiloquent,
hell-bent on proving that she
can too do it, that she can more
than do it, certainly
as well as he,
it makes for a sore
next day.