This is what I am willing to admit.
I have known it always somewhere in me: I am not a team player.
I figured you all realized that already, but now I realize it, too.
I am not sure it is something that has to be changed. I haven't decided on that yet.
It is enough for me right now to just know it and say it to myself quietly in my heart
or type it here like it matters
or write it over and over again in the journal that Urs gave me (now sadly relegated to mostly nothing more than a notebook of TO DO lists)
or shout it into my pillow so no one can hear even though the house is silent and sleeping
or blow it softly onto the bark of the tree in my backyard hoping the marrow that courses through its lovely wood will ease this knowing, carry it away, make it be of use.
TO BE OF USE
(Marge Piercy)
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
***
"The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real."
This is my work.
It is common as mud.
And it is so very stunning.
I figured you all realized that already, but now I realize it, too.
I am not sure it is something that has to be changed. I haven't decided on that yet.
It is enough for me right now to just know it and say it to myself quietly in my heart
or type it here like it matters
or write it over and over again in the journal that Urs gave me (now sadly relegated to mostly nothing more than a notebook of TO DO lists)
or shout it into my pillow so no one can hear even though the house is silent and sleeping
or blow it softly onto the bark of the tree in my backyard hoping the marrow that courses through its lovely wood will ease this knowing, carry it away, make it be of use.
TO BE OF USE
(Marge Piercy)
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
***
"The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real."
This is my work.
It is common as mud.
And it is so very stunning.