Monday, October 6, 2014

Arranging stones: poems and quilts


A tiny airliner
crosses the sky,
slicing 
without sound.

I type one
more word
on the page
and the seam closes.

Indian muslin
sewn to
French toile
means that pale young boys
play with a dog
in a beautiful garden
of dark-leafed paisley.

We pry
stones apart
just wide enough
to let another thing
live

and with all
that is in our power
sew them
together:

this scar
that is
ourselves.



22 comments:

  1. Lovely, particularly the image "in a beautiful garden / of dark-leafed paisley".

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  2. Amazingly beautiful write! I appreciate it as a seamstress & a poet. xo

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    1. Thanks so much, Marion. I am striving to understand the shift from writing poems to making quilts.

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  3. The last two stanzas are circling and circling, not ready to let go of me.

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    1. There is a continuum among these things that I am trying to understand. It does not let go of me either.

      Thanks, Rosaria.

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  4. Just now I hit "send" for an email…and here you are!
    Opening and closing, moving stones (here i think of Sisyphus), endlessly stitching "this scar/that is/ourselves." A scar not meant to heal, perhaps.So beautiful and thoughtful Ruth. Thank you.

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    1. Yes, I think we need something constantly healing us as we address this world. We are a scarred people. There are a few things I can control, or so it seems. These are things going through my head here.

      Thank you, my friend.

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  5. Lovely, Ruth, and though I hesitate to go down the interpretation path, my experience with various forms of creativity leads me to believe that this poem has something to do with the energy that lies at the source of expressive art. Whether working in words, thread, muslin, French toile, musical notes, or whatever, we are always involved to some degree in the process of arrangement, putting things in the kind of relationships that will help us better reflect, and perhaps better understand, "the scar that is ourselves."

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    1. Yes, I think you've got it. This poem comes at the shifting point from writing to designing something visual, quilts. I was reflecting on my need to control something, anything, in an existence nearly overwhelmed by what I cannot control. Well that was the meditation when the poem began. I don't know how coherent or adherent it is, and it could probably use more work to be more so.

      Thank you for reading and responding so well, George.

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  6. Oh, yes! I like this. And what the others commented.

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  7. These beautiful words recall the birth process, a seam opening, releasing and closing. We are all of us scars of creation.

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    1. Amanda, thank you for that image, which is breathtaking to me. Just the act of birth through that seam!

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  8. A wonderful analogy between words and your latest craft.
    How things overlap and interweave to create something new and lovely.
    Specially liked the third stanza.

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    1. I have not written for months, Elizabeth, and the shift to designing and sewing became a focus of mystery. I believe these expressions are essential to survival, at least for me.

      Thanks so much.

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  9. Upon moving through your imagery and being startled in a good way by the idea of a scar that is ourselves, my mind jumped to the word "suture" and from there to the Sanskrit word "sutra" and to this:

    "Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew."

    That came from here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra

    There is something that is holding your quilting and poetry together in a profound way. I am moved by both your poetry and your quilting. Thanks so much, Ruth.

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    1. AM, thank you for your response, which included this discovery of suture and sutra, and then the insight that there is something holding my quilting and poetry together. I never knew the meaning of sutra, which is like suture, how amazing. This is a beautiful way to think of what George wrote too, that there is an energy, a source, that comes through all sorts of artistic expression. I really love thinking about this. Thank you so much.

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  10. Wow. Reading the comments is half the thrill of this post, Ruth. Integrating your poetry and quilting is in itself a poetic espression of who you are. I like that.

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    1. Boots, isn't that often the way, with comments? I love them too.

      All these explorations of the mind are such joy.

      Thank you.

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  11. It all comes from our awareness of our scars and the impulse to create what might stitch a little of our brokeness or at least leave some of ourselves for other broken selves. All together we're a beautiful quilt.

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  12. these things come to mind, first of all wound, but form and void as well, and with force: rive or riven. it is a mystery that anything is and perhaps a greater mystery that we aren't gobsmacked constantly by the awe-full silence of being. it's cataclysmic, each seam closed and each one opened.

    xo
    erin

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All responses are welcome.