Renee's Bouquet

Abstract

Our first time meeting, but I'veheard enough trash talk on the Pioneers— So bitter! We invite ’em—they don't come! Or, Why they hafta tell such morbid stories! Or, They left! I felt like a pioneer!—I was braced.Monday 8AM, as agreed, Reneemy local's new Business Rep stood at the threshold:come for coffee, to pick a retiree's brain,learn some backstory.She held a bouquet.That bouquet! Not a grab-it-last-minute-at-7-11skimpy thing that maybe'd last the day. A glory oflilies and roses standing all together on long stems:each one upright and open and headed somewhere.No florist is open this early; the sister planned.History can punch you coming and going.Or, if you're lucky, very lucky,can send you a bouquet. And someone who knows:the past key lights the present; who takes the batonfrom your stubborn grip and says, I got this now.And you don't yank it back becauseyou believe them.You give your blessing, your If I can help . . . and step aside.When she left, Renee took a flier from 40 years back.Posted it on her office wall.I'm honored to follow Jim Daniels in the position he inaugurated as poetry editor of Labor. I've long admired Jim as a poet in the fullest sense of that word, as learned from my first craft teacher, Denise Levertov. I appreciate that Labor's editors place the Common Verse at the front of each issue. For me this recognizes the particular calling of the arts to invite us into history, to open scars as well as visions, and to coax us into removing our blinders. As a longtime trade unionist, I feel the heightened perils and opportunities of this moment for the labor movement, the country, and the world. Looking forward.