When my son was in high school he was given an assignment to "shadow" someone at work for a day and write about the experience. Most of the students followed a parent at work, which is what my daughter had done a few years before. David, however, chose to spend the day with the owner/manager of a small, used-book store where we frequently buy books. He got along well for the day, and Edie enjoyed his company so much she offered him a job. He ended up working there on and off for about eight years.
Now in his last year of college, David needs to complete an intership before he can graduate. He applied at the Library of Congress, because that seemed like a good fit for him. He loves books of all sorts, and is really quite organized. This week they called and offered him an internship with their Folk Life Project. It's not a paid internship, but you never know. Maybe it will be like the book store, and eight years from now he will still be there.
And now a couple of poems about work:
Like the star
Shining afar
Slowly now
And without rest,
Let each man turn, with steady sway,
Round the task that rules the day
And do his best.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To Be Of Use
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.
Marge Piercy
