O Operário Em Construção

And the Devil, taking him to a high mountain, showed him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world. And the Devil said to him:
- I will give you all this power and its glory, because it has been given to me and I give it to whom I want; therefore, if you worship me, everything will be yours.
And Jesus, answering, said to him:
- Get behind me, Satan; for it is written: you shall worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.
Luke, chap. IV, vs. 5-8.

It was he who raised houses
Where there was only ground before.
Like a bird without wings
He climbed with the houses
That sprouted from his hand.
But he knew nothing
Of his great mission:
He did not know, for example
That a man's house is a temple
A temple without religion
Just as he did not know
That the house he made
Being his freedom
Was his slavery.

Indeed, how could
A worker in construction
Understand why a brick
Was worth more than a loaf of bread?
Bricks he piled
With shovel, cement, and square
As for bread, he ate it...
But imagine eating a brick!
And so the worker went
With sweat and cement
Raising a house here
Ahead an apartment
Beyond a church, in front
A barracks and a prison:
A prison he would suffer
Were it not, eventually
A worker in construction.

But he did not know
This extraordinary fact:
That the worker makes the thing
And the thing makes the worker.
So that, one day
At the table, cutting the bread
The worker was taken
By a sudden emotion
To find, amazed
That everything on that table
- Bottle, plate, knife -
He was the one who made them
He, a humble worker,
A worker in construction.
He looked around: trough
Bench, mat, cauldron
Glass, wall, window
House, city, nation!
Everything, everything that existed
He was the one who made it
He, a humble worker
A worker who knew
How to practice his profession.

Ah, men of thought
You will never know how much
That humble worker
Knew at that moment!
In that empty house
That he himself had built
A new world was born
Of which he did not even suspect.
The emotional worker
Looked at his own hand
His rough worker's hand
Of a worker in construction
And looking closely at it
He had a second impression
That there was nothing in the world
More beautiful.

It was within the understanding
Of that solitary moment
That, like his construction
The worker also grew.
He grew in height and depth
In width and in the heart
And like everything that grows
He did not grow in vain
For beyond what he knew
- Practicing his profession -
The worker acquired
A new dimension:
The dimension of poetry.

And a new fact was seen
That everyone admired:
What the worker said
Another worker listened to.

And so it was that the worker
Of the building under construction
Who always said yes
Began to say no.
And he learned to notice things
To which he had not paid attention:
He noticed that his lunchbox
Was the boss's plate
That his dark beer
Was the boss's whiskey
That his striped overalls
Were the boss's suit
That the shack where he lived
Was the boss's mansion
That his two wandering feet
Were the boss's wheels
That the hardness of his day
Was the boss's night
That his immense fatigue
Was the boss's friend.

And the worker said: No!
And the worker became strong
In his resolution.

As was to be expected
The mouths of denunciation
Began to say things
To the boss's ears.
But the boss did not want
Any concern
-