This poem is by Ralph Noble, a friend who 50 years ago did his student-teaching in my classroom at McHenry Elementary. Ralph gave his permission to share this. I copied the words from his Facebook page and took the liberty of arranging them in InDesign and then pasting them here.
The Unseen
I don’t see the hands,
but they picked the strawberries
I drooled over for dessert
You can’t see the hands,
but they lifted your father from
his nursing home bed to clean him
I didn’t see the hands,
but they cleaned the hotel room
that I stayed in last night for $250
We didn’t see the hands,
but they washed the dishes from
our fabulous $200 dinner
We don’t see their faces.
They are behind masks.
We don’t see their names.
They are taped over and hidden from sight.
We don’t know which agency they work for,
it is classified.
They come armed. They come in mass
The unseen faces take away the unseen hands
to unknown places, out of sight. Gone.
Gone from the fields
Gone from the nursing homes
Gone from the hotels
Gone from the restaurants
Gone from their families and friends
Gone from us
Gone
- by Ralph Noble
