Meg Withers

Greeting the Moirai

(for Mom, 1915-2006)

i.

Klotho spindled

                        drives

            the orbit of     turns

  whirls  fiber

            each rich thread     dropping

      its coil

                        down  

                                    forming footprints in dust

                        cognizance  begins

                                    strokes beginnings and

            ends   of   us

                                                into being.

ii

Gathering    those    beginnings

           

            Lachesis’ shuttle shoves both ways

         warp and weft       warp and weft 

                        days and nights    build

 

    multiply into     future

                                    lame    fate

limps along

               banging and clattering

                        its beater            

                                                strung   full     reeds

clatter to chase

              points of      shears

                                    farther away

iii

Fabric manifests    whole

                              on beam  

            starched     vivid   dyes

                        Atropos

     revolves   this      tissue of time

                         distant pendulums swing

              cogs wheels    click slide    against one another

                                 scissors flashing slash

                                                 

            in sharp   cross hatch    

  wicked with accuracy                     we find  

                        how long

                                    is never enough

Visiting the Dead

New Year’s Day, 2011

Be – each angle of passing perspective

mile marker 331, New Mexico

where the family planted a plastic picket fence

white silk roses, a cross

Mark this place

where the tumbleweed of soul

lifted over

its porous fencepost of flesh

into miles of chill air

Here – seventy miles per hour

we pass –

endless vista of mounds

thin range cattle witness

this eroded gravesite

wander, focused on food, sparse as air

leaving hoof prints scraped away

by sharp blue fingers of wind

What is left

after friction of element upon element –

memory

the tumulus of shifting red sandstone

piñon pines carved by wind

grave markers

Sagebrush be gathered this year

will cleanse the place of shadowy visitors:

mile-long freight trains

18-wheel trucks

cars filled with people rushing by

mile marker 331

Now – I look over at my dozing lover

in the passenger seat

dreaming his version of this journey

© Meg Withers