Knitting

by: Connie Jordan Green

Gather a sack of wool

sheared from the neighbor's lambs,

soiled with days in pasture,

rough with November wind and January ice.

Dunk in tubs of clear water

drawn from your own deep well,

water coursing from mountain top

to river to fissures in earth,

surging through underground streams

to spigot beneath your kitchen window.

When the wool sheds its burden, lift

it, tender as a mother with newborn.

Spread over boxwood where sunlight dries

fibers you’ll card and dye with marigold bloom

or onion skin, mordant applied for long life.

Hang the roving until a quiet morning

when you spin fibers, your practiced hand

guiding wool over the wheel. Choose needles

for gauge, tapered point an eye

to see through the door of creation. 
 

Now the steady work—

strands into rows precise

as floors in a skyscraper,

cogs in an engine, pliant

as years in a life.