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Thursday
Marge Piercy’s “To Be of Use” informs us what real governing and being in service to the people looks like. We got this from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the past four years. How much will we get from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance?
To Be of Use
Marge Piercy
The people I love best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shadows
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 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.
The challenges of governing don’t lend themselves to reality television. Can we get real work out of the White House and Congress rather than incessant posturing and never-ending bullshit? We’re about to find out.
