LABOR DAY, 2026

 

LABOR DAY, 2026

    For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?

        Esther, 8: 6

    “All he can tell her is, ‘If you are silent now, and do not defend your people, you will have nothing to     say in the world to come.”

        Avivah Gottlieb Vornberg, The Murmuring Deep, p. 123

When my brother took me to see the Mariners play

on my 80^th birthday, I saw those guys with signs

outside the stadium. They had bullhorns

and weren’t easy to listen to. Mordecai,

Mordecai. I have my own corner

of the street. Sack cloth and Stetson

hats become me. I dress up

my signs with colored Sharpie pens,

playing with inside and outside.

The people I stand with say,

Your writing is too small. Those cars

going by, they can’t read a word.

Turn your sign around I say

to myself as I turn and go

the other way—let them read

the other side. Keep walking.

Jim Bodeen

7 September 2026