Sept New Moon / Labor Day

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Today’s new moon coincides with Labor Day (Labour for my Canadian and British friends!), when we honor workers and in particular we remember all that the Labor Movement has given us: the 8-hour work day and the 40-hour work week (back in in 1870, the average work week for most Americans was 61 hours), safer working conditions, fair wages (a fight still in process), and so much more.

“Work” can mean so many things, not all of them positive. And yet at its best, there is nobility in work when it aligns to our deepest values and intentions.

This new moon, I’m sharing one of my favorite poems which graces the front of my book, Work That Matters. May you have a deeply nourishing day and may your work be “real.”

To Be of Use
by Marge Piercey

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.

Find Work That Matters here…

• Parallax Press

• Amazon

• Bookshop