On an Old Tapestry

There comes a time when

You stop trying to explain things.

How can you, when
You don’t even know yourself?

Looking at an old textile 

I think, something there,

As she was stitching said 

Pay no attention to 

Provenance, for that is
For the future, and 

Need not be contemplated.

This woman in another century,  

Stitching into an unknown

Simply didn’t think 

Like that, 

Her musings long ago, as she took 

Her careful stitches: 

“I wonder, are they roses?”

In my own world centuries on 

I really can’t say,

The fabric takes on roses

Although I think they’re 

Peonies. 

Maybe I’m too loosely

Constructed in these strange days,

When nothing makes much sense.

I rearrange these old roses, thinking 

Old peonies, while through the years her 

Stitchery whispers to me, so silent: 

Watch, lean in,

Listen, see the colors.

The fabric’s frayed from ageless age,

A provenance of sorts arriving after all,

In a way I am meant to note:

Knit and stitch all things together

And they will come into

To be.