Thanks Katey. There are two poems that remind me of Winedale. Little
Gidding is one, here is the other.
Eric
PS – anyone still have their Kenneth Patchen poem memorized?
To
Be of Use, Marge Piercy
The
people I love the best
Jump
into work head first
Without
dallying in the shallows
And
swim of 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 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.
From:
winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of katey
gilligan
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:52 AM
To: alums
Subject: [Winedale-l] Poetry Doc Read to Us in 1994, I Remember Now,
Here's for You
LITTLE GIDDING
(No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
T.S. Eliot
V
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
--
Katey Gilligan
Masters in Science
Technology Commercialization
Red McCombs School of Business
The University of Texas at Austin