Peace Corps & Volunteering
Writing on the desire to be of service, from Judith Chalmer, Diana Woodcock, and Andrew Brown.
TRANSCRIPT
Sunday, March 1, the Peace Corps celebrated its 65th anniversary. President John F. Kennedy founded the Peace Corps in 1961 to train and deploy volunteers to work in underserved communities across the world. On this episode of Burning Bright, three pieces about the desire to give back.
For 12 years, Judith Chalmer led VSA Vermont, a nonprofit that helped disabled people access the arts. Here’s her poem about that most basic of desires, to be of service, “I Want a Use.”
I want to open like the lake
as it breaks at the shore.
I want to build my service.
It’s never been this cold.
Ripples gather and stick
on the tabled sand,
these swirled like the fancy
handles of knives,
these rimmed platters,
chilled and forbidding.
I want to wave you in,
like the oak leaves I passed
yesterday in the woods,
their golden fingers
waking from the snow
in a stadium of small caps
tossed at each heel
or hoof’s arrival.
From Passager’s 2019 Winter issue, “I Want a Use” by Judith Chalmer.
Diana Woodcock said this next poem was inspired by her work with the Art Workshop International in the town of Assisi, in the Umbria region of Italy. In the 12th Century, St. Claire of Assisi encouraged people to take vows of poverty and dedicate their lives to helping others. Here is Diana’s poem, “On the Feast of St. Claire.”
On the Feast of St. Claire
I pause to remember
when I was there,
walking the cobbled streets of her town Assisi,
where living appeared slow and easy.
I made a vow
then and there that somehow
I’d find a way to walk day by day
easy on this earth, in harmony
with all species, taking only
my share – perhaps even less
than that – giving back
what I don’t need to subsist,
walking gently, unhurriedly,
paying rapt attention to birds and feral cats,
weeds and all unwanted beings with special needs,
saving seeds to keep me ever mindful of life’s fragile
sacredness, writing haiku
in order to pursue the essence,
letting go the dream of owning
a sailboat with decks of teak
and a mast of Sitka spruce,
weaving together science
and beauty with cattails,
blue silt and star dust.
I made a vow so many years ago now
in Assisi – it clings to me
like sand forming a dune
in a desert, taking its stand
with impermanence
against extravagance.
Diana Woodcock’s poem “On the Feast of St. Claire” from Passager’s 2020 Poetry Contest issue.
Andrew Brown said he was lucky to live “in a place where radio reception was poor but magazines and books were everywhere.” This excerpt from his short story “What Tools Will Do to A Young Man” follows a forest service fire crew’s attempt to save a herd of horses from a prairie fire.
Our forest service fire crew was young, some of us still in college, some just back from military service, some ranch boys out to make pocket money, and all willing to pick up a shovel, a saw, or a Pulaski, that double-bladed tool of wildfire fighters, half axe, half grub-hoe.
In October 1957 we went to fight a small fire in Kicking Horse Canyon in the Bitterroot Mountains. When the fire we should have been able to contain blew up on us, I learned about the responsibilities that come to boys who pick up tools to do battle with nature. Across a landscape of seared hills, swirling ash, and charred to-cinder brush, my crew of hotshots were caught by the fire’s blowout.
When the fire turned to rage in the belt-high grass and tangled thickets of juniper and Gamble oak, I last saw the youngest of our number, the redoubtable Schmidt, heading for the park’s south gate road. In one hand he carried a shovel as a spear, and in the other his weapon of choice, the Pulaski. He’d pulled the goggles on his hard hat down and, like a knight, moved to fight the dragon. We had been told as a crew to be sure and save the wild pony herd.
“Where the hell’s that dumb fuck going?” Martin, the crew chief, yelled above the roar rising from the fire’s full-throated cry. “Don’t that boy know he’ll never save the horses now?”
An excerpt of Andrew Brown’s story “What Tools Will Do To A Young Man, from his book The Chugalug King and Other Stories.
At a time when nations and people are becoming more and more divided, it’s important to remember the importance of caring for one another. Volunteer service reminds us that compassion is central to humanity.
To buy Andrew Brown’s book The Chugalug King and Other Stories, subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com. Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what’s on sale this week.
Special thanks to American University intern Stevie Rosenfeld for writing this episode of Burning Bright.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
