Questions from a Worker Who Reads.

[A]

Questions from a Worker Who Reads 

by Bertolt Brecht (h/t David Ruccio).

Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
Of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves

The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not even have a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Years’ War. Who
Else won it?

Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?

So many reports.
So many questions.

Image Credits:
[A] "Day scene. Wheaton Glass Works. Boy is Howard Lee. His mother showed me the family record in Bible which gave birth July 15, 1894. 15 years old now, but has been in glass works two years and some nights. Started at 13 years old. Millville, N.J., 11/1909". Photographed by Lewis Hine. This work is in the public domain. Wikipedia.