The Man Who Sets Up Chairs.

The Man Who Sets Up Chairs

Say hello to the man who sets up chairs-

Farther than the eye can see.  He is fifty-nine,

Going on sixty, and he has been doing it for

Seventeen years.  Sometimes, when he is bored,

He’ll stack them

In a row or on top of each other just because

He feels like it.  Other times, he thinks he should

Be doing something more worthwhile than this.

Maybe he wants to be a mailman instead, or a wanderer,

Going from city to city, asking for a bit of money or

A place to stay.

But here he dwells, and here he stays, stacking chairs

One by one next to each other, trying to find a place of sanity

In this crazy, mixed up world, one chair at a time.

He doesn’t know how to do anything else. 

He doesn’t understand

How to be anyone else, because that’s the only thing he’s

Been doing since he was a teenager.

He never got a high school diploma.

Sometimes he worries about the weather or if he’ll be able to

Pay the bills.  Sometimes, he thinks if he’ll have enough food

To live off of.  But still he goes to the school cafeteria every morning

At 8am, and takes out the chairs one by one and sets

Them up, hoping each child will have a place to sit for lunch.

Each and every day-Monday thru Friday.

Don’t think of him as a common Joe, think of him as someone else,

Someone who cares so much about his work that he’s

Willing to sacrifice himself to the setting up of chairs.