The Weight of Blue

It begins with the voice—
gravel-throated, smoke-laced,
the anthem of soil and steel.
Denim knows the weight of hammers,
the scrape of timber,
the heat of a welder’s torch.
It whispers of calloused hands,
knuckles scarred from honest work.

Yet it is not confined to toil.
Denim can rise to meet the occasion.
Head-to-toe, it becomes
the Canadian tuxedo,
proud as a loon’s cry on a mirror lake,
true as northern stars.
No silk nor satin rivals
its stubborn grace,
its rugged poise.

Denim is tough—
like the human heart,
stitched tight, fraying only at the edges,
resilient as the sinews of a worker’s arm.
It does not falter,
only bears, and bears again,
the jagged edges of existence.

Yet with time, it learns to gentle:
softening at the knees,
folding with habit, wearing with trust.
It sways, not from weakness,
but from knowing:
that strength is in the give,
that the fibers loosen
to fit a life fully lived.