Week 20: “Regrets, I’ve had a few"

[marlawentmad]

Those gnarled hands are tireless
spinning out the threads, spooling
the yarn around the tongues
of the story tellers, the spinners, crafty
and nimble with the creative weaving
of a life.

The ups and downs of a pattern spanning
across the loom encasing whole lifetimes
of misdeeds and heroic acts, small kindnesses
and gentle care taking, of lives squandered,
deaths celebrated.

Sometimes I’d get my curious
idle hands into the
design and pick at a thread, and pull,
and pluck, and fray
until my fingernails could grip
and pull to see, to know, where
did this string of action come from
and how ever did I get to
where I am now.

I dream sometimes that I can unweave
that which has been sung,
to spare myself the ache of
all that has been, has done, will be.
Time exists at once across
the tapestry, each color happening to
me right now, this instant, no matter how much time has passed.

I can still feel the vibration
of those years crawl across my skin,
like I am the weaving Arachne,
many-limbed and sensitive, squatting
in my web, waiting for the opportunity
of nourishment.
Patient, still, sure.