wordkeeper

and in the remnants of what was torn
–
open seams picked apart millimeter by millimeter
crawling on fine liner legs, all one hundred across gravel
mandibles tearing what was worn
–
in this pile of threads, pink yellow orange, swished into a pan
azure linens, an inch here a centimeter there, carefully weighed and measured
on bronze scales cast by hand, spinning on an orbit unknown,
an axis fine tuned to sing with the moon
–
the old one sorted, a pound of scrap, hammer hammer
the old one snorted, two pounds of remnant, crank crank
the old one came up short, three pounds of wool, twist twist

bagged by color
– a mixture of materials spun from stinging nettle, cloudy cotton, silk woven by worms, corn husks, golden flax –
– dipped and double dipped yarns, soaked in cochineal, indigo, blood root, madder, and woad –
– woven cloths, harnesses lifting two at a time, open shed sailing through shore to shore –

in these three bags full
something new was found
the rest of them were put to rest
finally
at peace