The Wreckers

I watched them tearing a building down,
     A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell,
     They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
 
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
     As the men you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave me a laugh and said, “No indeed!
     Just common labor is all I need.”
 
“I can easily wreck in a day or two
     What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
     Which of these two roles have I tried to play?
 
Am I a builder who works with care,
     Measuring life by the rule and square?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
     Content with the labor of tearing down?
 
by Edgar A. Guest