the labor theory of value

The Labor Theory of Value

On the roof in a folding lounge chair 
underneath a leopard print blanket
sent to me by a vendor, seeking an audience,
listening to the sunset song of a bird I cannot yet identify. 
I’ll have time to go birding, I say. I’ll learn the songs. 

Swallows -- I think swallows -- dip parabolas across the roof.

Yesterday I watched a red-tailed hawk watch the parking lot,
looking for a rat or a rabbit or a squirrel. 

It’s the golden hour but I already
took all my photos for the day, since
suddenly my calendar cleared itself, 
a magic trick I couldn’t master alone. 
Turned out I needed a push.

The church bells play Amazing Grace, not quite on the hour.
I say a tiny grace for myself and the sparrow perched now
on the edge of my roof, like I never would. 
I don’t throw myself from high places, 
I guess I burn myself up in the flames. 
Or maybe empty myself out? Now
my day is empty and I will need
to learn again how to live in that, 
in the silence of no longer necessary,
watching my mind kill the threads of worry
about problems I no longer have to solve,
as the fans stop spinning and the noise 
of them fades so I can sit here listening
to the bird I can’t identify, listening 
to the void inside of me that could not
be filled however much labor I produced, 
however many migraines I gave myself
from the eyestrain of however many 
video meetings I attended attempting 
to provide value. Impact, we called it,
for which one needed leverage, which
can be used up, like one’s credit. 

So the meetings dissipate now like a bad dream
or the mirage of meaningfulness, of purpose,
of the dignity of labor, 

the wish to be valued in coin
and to be paid in respect. 

What did I do wrong again, to find myself here,
watching the sunset, an event that cannot 
be purchased at all, that requires not my labor
but my attention, requires, indeed, my rest?

What does it mean to rest?
What does it mean to sit here
worth nothing, producing no value,
as the world continues
to spin and the clouds turn pink
for no particular purpose at all.

Why do I think I did wrong to end up here, at rest?

How long can I watch fluff from some tree drift in the air
in the last light of the sun before the noise catches up 
with me and necessity drives me again to production,
to the Sisyphean work of proving my worth to those
who have always already judged me deficient?

Let me prove my worth to the sunset instead,
let me worship the full moon rising 
and leave off loving my work, 
that terrible mistress, 
who is nothing like the sun.

amy isikoff newell, May 2021