Fingers do the talking

stitching
piecing
placing
putting
together

making
words
phrases
arranging
sentences

dilatory
gradual
line by line

slow, real slow

row upon row

dithering, bothering,
uncertain, unsure
lost, finding, losing

undoing, unravelling,
scragging, tying up in knots
unpick the burden of eternity

take up the thread start afresh
go back where you left off

in a moment so sweet the most unlikely person
whilst knitting - not nattering, as was supposed to happen
but never had - began to talk
about her shed and another about the leopard, then we got
the artist’s way, King Arthur and the holy grail until finally
the story about Orlanda, Vita, Virginia and why university.

all on a midsummer evening, all self-affirmed, all changed
whilst pulling old clothes out of dusty drawers: inside out
confirming our sanity by Thoreau’s water, wearing worlds we had known
dressing up in other ways to be, alternatives, borrowed lives, putting on
trying for size, running fingers over, smoothing down
snagging, catching hold a different thread that takes, holds fast
makes a new pattern

a tractor crosses,
disturbs my line of vision
how beautiful

intense green
sky scrumbled grey
light hitting the blue cab

I decide not to talk about it
to keep silent
to meld into the moment

thank god