{"id":1730,"date":"2008-11-16T19:47:50","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T03:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=1730"},"modified":"2008-11-16T19:47:50","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T03:47:50","slug":"to-be-of-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/to-be-of-use\/","title":{"rendered":"To be of use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><small><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">To Be of Use<\/span><\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>By Marge Piercy<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small><br \/>\nThe people I love the best<br \/>\njump into work head first<br \/>\nwithout dallying in the shallows<br \/>\nand swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.<br \/>\nThey seem to become natives of that element,<br \/>\nthe black sleek heads of seals<br \/>\nbouncing like half-submerged balls.<\/p>\n<p>I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,<br \/>\nwho pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,<br \/>\nwho strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,<br \/>\nwho do what has to be done, again and again.<\/p>\n<p>I want to be with people who submerge<br \/>\nin the task, who go into the fields to harvest<br \/>\nand work in a row and pass the bags along,<br \/>\nwho are not parlor generals and field deserters<br \/>\nbut move in a common rhythm<br \/>\nwhen the food must come in or the fire be put out.<\/p>\n<p>The work of the world is common as mud.<br \/>\nBotched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.<br \/>\nBut the thing worth doing well done<br \/>\nhas a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.<br \/>\nGreek amphoras for wine or oil,<br \/>\nHopi vases that held corn, are put in museums<br \/>\nbut you know they were made to be used.<br \/>\nThe pitcher cries for water to carry<br \/>\nand a person for work that is real. <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-rU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}