stitching and school

a few stitches of silk and paper

 on paper

at home last night

i stitched 

paper thread and silk 

dyed

on wake robin papers

and our school year opening meeting

i spotted a kangaroo. a touch of oz 

in the north country

a good beginning

a little humor

struggling/joy

how can spring, 

so filled with the songs of birds

many i can't identify

how can spring

be so hard?

storms destroy

inner storms, too

bodies rebel

yet are so familiar 

is it that joy has disappeared?

it is the muggy, fudzy wet greeness?

is it despair that pushes at my skin until i say

yes, yes.

sorting out threads, saving some, giving some up. 

and the thursday oriole, first i've ever seen here,

i hope may return.

how it is here

my life is a series of small miracles and weirdnesses. and very simple, really. quiet. except for the tiny metallic ting i heard before dawn today. a dog bowl sound. once. then twice. i went to investigate. turned on the light. ready for anything. then saw the movement. a juvenile red squirrel zipped into a basket with my swimming things in it that sits on a small chest. a little curse, then i opened the doors to outside, approached the basket, carefully picked up the leather handles, and transported it to the stoop. there i left it and am hoping the critter has scrammed. sigh. it gets old, the constant battle to keep wildlife (mostly rodents) outdoors.

i scored this book in toronto. i love the title. stones bones and stitches. suits me. i suppose it's appropriate that there are red squirrels trying to lick out wendy's bowl. bones on the work table. and paper and vellum and shifu and...stitches holding it all together.

you also MUST see this. from the current issue of selvedge: from the exhibit threads of feeling. each fabric swatch was harvested by a foundling's mother when she gave up her child, a chosen textile from their personal clothing is the identifying fiber used by mom and orphanage to tie baby to mother. 27,000 of them.