Monday, November 3, 2014

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



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