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Gary LeBel

Seven Words

Not long ago I was walking across a paper machine floor when one of its operators, a young man in his late twenties or early thirties I’d guess, came up beside me as if intending to walk with me awhile, the roar of the enormous behemoth beside us deafeningly loud. I could not remember his name though I recognized him from earlier work on his machine.

Shouting above the din, he looked at me and said, “Why are you smiling?” 

And shouting back without thinking I caught his eyes with mine and said, “Because I’m alive, and so are you.” He appeared to chew on that a moment as we continued walking. Then he smiled to himself, and then at me, and shaking his head while patting me on the shoulder, veered off to where he was going. Had I opened a new door I hadn’t known was there with a knock of seven words?

How arduous at times
like a Herculean feat
to wake up and all that day 
feel at home in the skin
you were bundled in

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About the Author

Gary LeBel is an artist-poet living in the greater Atlanta area whose poems have appeared in journals throughout the USA, the UK, Japan, and India. He believes that art, or anything else worth doing, is a life-long pilgrimage.