Opus

       Tracy K. Smith has done some difficult things in her life, such as getting into Harvard and becoming U.S. Poet Laureate. Does she remain ambitious? Seems that way -- one of her current projects is to collaborate on an opera about...urban planning. 

    The opera-in-progress is called A Marvelous Order. It sings of the battle between "master builder" Robert Moses -- the un-elected power broker who literally shaped 20th century New York City -- and Jane Jacobs, the writer and activist who successfully stopped his attempt to ram a highway through the heart of Greenwich Village. Smith is providing the libretto for this opus, which you can sample here:  

    While we await the premiere of A Marvelous Order at BAM (perhaps?) we can enjoy this new poem by Tracy K. Smith about smaller-scale labor. 

  

   SOULWORK

    One’s is to feed. One’s is to cleave.

    One’s to be doubled over under greed.
    One’s is strife. One’s to be strangled by life.
    One’s to be called and to rise.
    One’s to stare fire in the eye.
    One’s is bondage to pleasure.
    One’s to be held captive by power.
    One’s to drive a nation to its naked knees
    in war. One’s is the rapture of stolen hours.
    One’s to be called yet cower.
    One’s is to defend the dead.
    One’s to suffer until ego is shed.
    One’s is to dribble the nectar of evil.
    One’s but to roll a stone up a hill.
    One’s to crouch low
    over damp kindling in deep snow
    coaxing the thin plume
    of cautious smoke.
    One’s is only to shiver.
    One’s is only to blow.