TO BE OF USE
The people I love the best
Jump into work head first
Without dallying in the shallows
And swim 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 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 ina row and pass the bags along,
Who stan in the line and haul their places,
Who are not parlor general and field deserters
But move in a common rhythm
Who 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 the 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.
- Marge Piercy
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