[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

 Saturday, September 28, 2019

This was the dawn sight at five a.m., a beautiful profile with tide still rising, but stress not relieved:

Scary, No?

PILAR will need more rollers under the cradle to lower her further into the water, more chain added to the chain-fall :

...but with a crew of eight Gung Ho Filipinos and 'Johnny On The Spot' cruising friend, David to help...

...PILAR floats free from her cradle!

Celebration will happen later...the work of hauling every weighty piece of green coconut lumber from the beach to storage at the house continues all day long...

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.