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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 stand in the line and haul in their places,
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.
She still has a long road ahead of her, but at least now there IS a road, you know?
Speaking of segues, look how much my cat and my dog love each other.
SERIOUSLY.
'
There was a song that kept coming up, and I'm sure I listened to it a hundred times as I drove around, hours on the Burin Peninsula Highway, driving around in my old home, my old life with new circumstances. It was the one song that I remember from the trip, the one song that made me feel the tiniest bit hopeful when my whole life was going to shit.
I don't think I even knew it was Snow Patrol until I was listening to them earlier tonight, and it came on.
Music, man.
It's like we just can't help ourselves
'Cause we don't know how to back down
We were called out to the streets
We were called in to the towns
And how the heavens, they opened up
Like arms of dazzling gold
With our rain washed histories
Well they do not need to be told
Show me now, show me the arms aloft
Every eye trained on a different star
This magic
This drunken semaphore
And I
We are listening
And we're not blind
This is your life
This is your time
We are listening
And we're not blind
This is your life
This is your time
I was called out in the dark
By a choir of beautiful cheats
And as the kids took back the parks
You and I were left with the streets
Show me now, show me the arms aloft
Every eye trained on a different star
This magic
This drunken semaphore
And I
We are listening
And we're not blind
This is your life
This is your time
So, I have written about my intense love for Frightened Rabbit before (but have evidently neglected to use the "music" tag in doing so, or I would have linked to that entry directly), and the song "Heads Roll Off" is one of my favorite songs of all time. It's the song I have returned to again and again lyrics-wise since August, the one I have referenced in conversation countless times since all this has happened, the song that defines my day-to-day existence more than any other.
I have avoided listening to it since everything happened, though, because I thought it would be too painful. But then I look it up on youtube tonight, and the video, which I am just seeing for the first time ever? It's my LIFE.
I am laughing right now. Because really.
Jesus is just a Spanish boy's name.
How come one man got so much fame?
To enemy, it's pointless to anybody
That doesn't have faith
Give me the cloth and I'll wipe my face.
When it's all gone
Something carries on
And it's not morbid at all,
Just when nature's had enough of you
When my blood stops,
Someone else's will not.
When my head rolls off,
Someone else's will turn.
And while I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth.
So you can burn me
Cause we'll all be the same, the same way.
Dirt in someone's eyes cried down the drain
I believe in a house in the clouds
And God's got his dead friends 'round
He's painted all the walls red
To remind them they're all dead
And you know when it's all gone, something carries on
And it's not morbid at all
Just when nature's had enough of you.
When my blood stops
Someone else's will not.
When my head rolls off
Someone else's will turn.
You can mark my words, I'll make tiny changes to earth
While I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth
Tiny changes to earth
Tiny changes to earth
Wrigley got his sutures out today. The growth they removed from his neck was cancerous, but not the kind of cancer we were worried it was, weirdly enough. The kind it turned out to be was actually way less likely, in that the kind of growth it was had a 98% chance of NOT being cancer, and then it WAS. But apparently the surgery got it all, and that's expected to be curative, which is fantastic. Except for how his liver enzymes are also hella elevated and we don't know why, but that will have to wait until my sister can do an ultrasound and figure some shit out.
Here he is in his "hospital gown", i.e. an old t-shirt of Mom's that he had to wear for almost a week because of his (gulp) WOUND DRAINAGE.
I don't know if I mentioned that my sister eventually did have to bring her cat Gideon in to have him euthanized because of HIS cancer, which progressed even more quickly than we thought (and hoped) it would. He actually died before they even injected him with the worst stuff; they gave him the sedative and that was it. Poor little dude. I spent the evening beforehand snuggling with him on their couch & crying with my sister. Because seriously.
Look at that handsome dude.
It has been a fucked up few months around here. If I am depressed, in the clinical sense, I'm going to go ahead and blame cancer. Which I know isn't helpful, in the grand scheme, but this shit is fucked up.
