On it we’ll soon be working away,

Laboring in sunshine and shade,

The infrastructure, I mean to say,

Where the new jobs will be made.

We’ll be shoring up our homes,

Stuffing fiberglass in the cracks,

Checking infiltration syndromes,

With infrared feedbacks.

We’ll be digging under city streets,

Where utilities are a rusted jumble,

With no correlation to spreadsheets,

Said to map under overhead rumble.

We’ll erect tall obtrusive structures,

To grab and wring the wind,

Their magnets spin on armatures,

Loose electrons to snare and send.  

We’ll be fixing up the electric grid,

Blowing electrons west and east,

To battery, LED and hybrid,

Motor, computer, kitchen feast.

Surfaces we’ll clad with PV cell,

Buildings, fields and parking lots,

Local power but to grid also sell,

By entrepreneurs and patriots.

We’ll be digging up water lines,

Designed generations ago,

‘Cause of all the tell-tale signs,

They’re about ready to blow. 

We’ll be fixing bridges on highways,

Where concrete and asphalt roads

Cross rivers, bayous, and bays,

Carrying heavy, bouncing loads. 

We’ll be putting in cable anew,

So broadband’s the lay of the land,

And Internet informs all but a few,

That the entire world’s at hand.

We’ll fix all these baseline things,

And think infrastructure’s just fine,

But with truth that knowledge brings,

We’ll reach the bottom line.         

This infrastructure’s for voluntary acts:  

When we want to haul, ride or walk,

Communicate, cook or look up facts,

Use stored water or with someone talk.

But what about things behind these acts?

Those things without thinking we do?

Things that are rarely considered facts?

Things invisible in modern milieu?    

Bridges over water not fit for drinking?

Windmills breathing dirty, smoggy air?

Cities throb while wildlife’s shrinking?

We learn all — except treating earth fair?     

Then what good are jobs gained?

What gain is our phone talk?

Why care if transport’s maintained?,

If we’re sick and can’t walk?

Infrastructure is so much more

Than the things we build and use,

The environment has a vital core,

If not sustained —we all lose!

© 2009 R. Leland Waldrip