For Labor Day

 

Joe Hill wrote on his dying day

"My body? Oh, if I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow"

and from this the story spins this way

 

Reduced to ashes as he wanted

but his acolytes by his words undaunted

spread the ashes far and wide

to city streets and countryside

to his native land and Detroit woods 

and burned again and re-collected

and eaten, washed down with ale

Is there never end to this tale

Joe Hill has grown and grown and multiplied

'til six men on a side could not heft the box

that would hold his body, hide and locks

If we believe all the tales in print

even Joe would wonder where he went.