"I shall create! If not a note, a hole.
If not an overture, a desecration."
These lines from the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "boy breaking glass" speak volumes to the need of all people, children and youth included, to realize their dreams and live up to their God-given potential. And these lines also speak to the tragedy that happens when the cries for self- actualization within us are muted by the circumstances of life. All too often, the violence, crime, and self-destruction that we see in our urban areas is a cry to be heard, to make one's mark, to exert one's influence over something, even if that influence is more harmful than constructive.
It's what gives the young men in our ghettos a sick sense of power by committing crimes
it's what makes my daughter love Bisou....
Sunday, December 17, 2006
"To Be Of Use", by Marge Piercy
This is one of my favorite poems. My department chair gave it to us English teachers as she resigned her position to start her own school. It's stayed in my heart ever since, and I shared it with family and friends when I left NJ for seminary in TX. (Don't quite know if they understood or appreciated it, though.)
Recently, I've seen this poem shared two or three times, so thought I'd post it, as it's always been a source of inspiration to me.
Wanna hear it, here it go....
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 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.
Recently, I've seen this poem shared two or three times, so thought I'd post it, as it's always been a source of inspiration to me.
Wanna hear it, here it go....
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 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.
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