Inveresk
By Nick Flittner
Published 1 January 2021
Under these folds of tin
men worked.
Vertical panels
to hold in the noise
and keep out the weather.
Windows illuminating machinery
highlighted dust
and oil and steam
and dangerous places.
This was a heavy lifting shed
where big and heavy men
made big and heavy things.
Lives were followed and celebrated
and expended here,
daily routines of clocking on
smoko and dinner and overtime,
acres of sweat and grime
and muscle and voices,
shouts of instruction
and warning,
and laughter
and friendship
amongst the steel
and the iron and the wood.
High ceilings
tall doors
straight tracks
thick girders
large spaces
echoes noise life.
This was a central place,
a heart,
an engine room of empire
an industrial beehive
making mending moulding
repairing.
It is quiet now,
ghostly,
just the hum of the heaters
and the hushed huddle
of patrons of the arts
visiting
for the first time perhaps
this homage to industrial man,
now cleaned and polished
and encased in glass
reborn to a second life of service
in this post-industrial world.