TWENTY men stand watching the muckers.
Stabbing the sides of the ditch
Where clay gleams yellow,
Driving the blades of their shovels
Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains
Wiping sweat off their faces
With red bandanas
The muckers work on . . pausing . . to pull
Their boots out of suckholes where they slosh.
Of the twenty looking on
Ten murmer, “O, its a hell of a job,”
Ten others, “Jesus, I wish I had the job.”
AmericanPoems Home – Poets –
Carl Sandburg
In the poem, Mucker, When some people look at things, they look at it was something bad or something they would not want to do. Weither it is too hard, not the right conditions, or beneath them. Others would love to have the oppertunity to be able to do what the other is doing, no matter how hard or difficult it is they look at it as an oppertunity.