Would Leo finesse the shoals of countless harbors?
Would Yuan shoulder bags of cardamom across the hills?
Would merchants toss the treasures of the continents onto our quays, without
a tally and the slap of palms with speedy copper?
Had we no answer for the call Tell us what you will pay,
the torrent of adventurers who
ford the streams, clear forest paths,
and hail city housewives with strange-spun wares
would dry to a trickle.
They would fade away with half their burdens,
or stop at half a journey to accept a skimpier profit.
Without accountants dexterously setting the terms of trade,
our coasts would see few wanderers.
Silks and teas would not be the only losses.
We could not taste the salty languages on their lips,
or learn their ways of forging metals
or hear their melismas sung in strange, beautiful modes.
We could not add their blood to our race,
or their religion to our thought.
They rarely look up—those calculators seated by their simply strung frames.
Their eyes focus on their beads from the horizon’s first light
till the candles of the night burn down.
They care not for the tints of the faces before them
nor whether the profferers’ clothing is sumptuous or tattered.
They keep each man honest,
they give each captain his due,
they multiply the wealth of states and empires, and
they spin the axis of the world.
Andy Oram
Aug 23, 2020