Glorious Height

Aug 12 2015

The window-washers

will never finish

their Sisyphean chore.

Circle the tower, then up a floor,

begin once more.

The gratification of squeaky clean

is small, but inexhaustible.

With an expert flick of the wrist

the squeegee glides, and twists

and corrals every drip

before it hits the sill,

leaving glass

that glitters and gleams.

A perpetual motion machine

50 stories high.

So self-satisfied bankers

can gaze out over the city

through floor-to-ceiling glass,

like the masters of the universe

they imagine themselves.

So the high-rise glistens

like liquid fire,

orange and gold

in setting sun.

A crystal fortress

of human pride.

A working man’s life,

dangling off a building

from 9 to 5.

Repeating the same practiced motion

with the same right hand.

Returning to the first window

when he’s done the last.

Ratchetting-up, and frictioning-down

in a futile race

to complete the task.

Looking-in

through tinted glass

at startled faces, looking back.

Or from Mt. Olympus, looking down

with grace, privilege, magic.

In the fabulous light, unearthly calm, above the clouds

on flawed and mortal man.

I think the poem pushes and pulls. There is the futility of a job that’s never done. And then there is the finality of finishing a window, the gratification of cleaning. There is the working grunt. And then there is the dignity of work. There is the repetitive and endless nature of the task. And then there is the lofty view, the privileged vantage point. There is something about human pride and solipsism. And then there is the flawed and mortal human condition.

On National Geographic’s Instagram feed, there was a picture of cleaners on the world’s tallest building (they never specified where or what it is, but Google tells me it’s the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). Apparently, there are 25,000 windows, and they never finish. It’s like painting a bridge:  once you’ve gotten to the end, the beginning needs painting again. So you will never see this building without window-washers dangling off of it. The work is never done.