work that is real.

once again, i've been gone quite a long time. i don't even know if anyone checks this any more.

but every once in a while my heart becomes too full and heavy to express in the spoken word and only the written will do.

i've been spending my summer working. as a teacher it's kind of a silly thing to do. but the work is important. and meaningful. and revolutionary. and will completely change the way we do things in school. for the better. i believe this with all my heart.

that being said, it is not easy.

in fact, most days it's hard.

we're met with resistance. we have different ideas. we disagree. after days and days of toiling, we feel nowhere closer to the end, but merely buried beneath a longer to-do list.

when i came home from a full day today, i looked up this poem i had taught to my women & lit kids this year. when i can't say what i need to, sometimes i find someone already has. and that makes me feel like i'm not alone any more. 

To be of use
by 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.