There is a gentle kind of love
in the ritual and the routine
of drawing thread through fabric,
in and out, lax and taut,
like the ebb and flow of life,
to forge an image so geometric-perfect,
thread crossing over thread,
each movement of the needle slight and slow.
In I draw the thread. Out I pull it:
red, blue, black and gold, against a background
of cream white Aida cloth.
There is a little prick on my finger
from where the needle has stuck me
as it made its way through the fabric.
Slim, the needle, like a laser into heaven.
Like the eye of God looking down on Earth,
piercing through the cloth, laying tracks,
that together form the picture of the whole.
Holding the slender metal I am mistress of the cloth,
owner of the little world webbed into the canvas.
Hour upon hour, I stitch and stitch away,
patiently, as the picture comes together.
I am sewing an ark, with animals
on many different tiers in many different colors.
What a menagerie is here!
Casting my mind out as I wonder,
I can almost hear the barking and the braying
and the mewling, the cawing – just almost.
The figures lift off from the page.
As if by the breath of God.
I will go on, and stitch the story
that lives now on the canvas of the fabric,
I mistress of the silken thread
as it twists and knots, leaving traces
that are the marks of this gentle kind of love.
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