Quilting Poetry
quiltware.com, Inc.Embellishments and patterns Huge selection of Appliques! |
Quality sewing patterns, fun buttons, gorgeous silk ribbon and unique embellishments for quilting, sewing, crafting. Reliably serving the on-line community since 1996 |
|
We accept checks and money orders. |
|
QUILTING POETRY
they were just meant as coversin winters
as weapons
against pounding January winds
but it was just that every morning I awoke to these
October ripened canvases
passed my hand across their cloth faces
and began to wonder how you pieced
all these together
these strips of gentle communion cotton
and flannel nightgowns
wedding organdies
dime store velvets
how you shaped patterns square
and oblong and round
positioned
balanced
then cemented them
with your thread
a steel needle
a thimble
how the thread darted in and out
galloping along the frayed edges,
tucking them in
as you did us at night---
you were the river current
carrying the roaring notes
forming them into pictures of a little boy reclining
a swallow flying
you were the caravan master at the reins
driving your threaded needle
artillery across the mosaic cloth bridges
delivering yourself in separate testimonies
oh mother you plunged me sobbing and laughing
into our past
into the river crossing at five
into the spinach fields
into the plain view cotton rows
into tuberculosis wards
into braids and muslin dresses
sewn hard and taut to withstand the thrashings of twenty-five years
stretched out they lay
armed/ready/shouting/celebrating
knotted with love
the quilts sing on
Theresa Palma Acosta
"My Mother Pieced Quilts"