Friday, December 8, 2023

The Grand Quilt

I don’t believe we can stitch together
only scraps of beauty, squares of light.
I don’t believe in a quilt that doesn’t also
have patches of sorrow, blocks of ache.
Such pieces are, of course, much harder
to want to stitch in. But it matters
that we do not exclude them.
It matters that we don’t pretend
they do not exist.
It matters that we sew every piece
into the grand cloth.
Now I know it matters
how we sew these pieces in,
perhaps using our finest silk thread,
perhaps with an elaborate stitch
our grandmother taught us,
or perhaps we must use
a stitch we make up
because no one ever taught us
how to do this most difficult task—
to meet what at first seems unwanted
and to incorporate it into the whole
knowing everything depends on this

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer


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