Tuesday, October 31, 2006

garment



When you tend to a child be gentle
Before you approach
say a prayer
Tender skin to match a tender heart
Too fresh for self-preservation:
a word a child can't know

When you speak to a child be slow
Before you breath in
accept what you hear
Tender past that never leaves you
Can grow again a-right:
a hope a child can't deny.

Cloth a child in cloth made of mercy
Feed a child the steady diet of plenty
Lilies of the field
Birds of the air

Monday, October 30, 2006

The Poverty of Dissention



I have been challenged this year in a way that I thought I would welcome. I have put myself in places of discussion that has broken down some of the tired and fruitless ways of being in community and faith.
I have crossed boundaries that kept out love and yet am confronted by the lack of connection within my own fences.

I have been reading Wendell Berry and he is illustrating community for me in the context of the deep social contracts which are grounded in marriage, extending to the preciousness of trust and forbearance for those who gather together.
This comes on the heals of discovering the conditional description read in one of Brennan Manning's books: the poverty of uniqueness.

Berry is a dissenter, an observer of community that can only offer his true observation from within the bounds of community. He says only community has the grace within it to shape it's change. A dissenter must speak out the truth that can offer fruitful change. A dissenter must remain within the community it criticize in order for the community to trust what the dissenter observes.
If the community doesn't trust the words of the dissenter, then membership is broken by their inattention or ambivalence.

It's feels like hard work to be a dissenter. Within even the best and most affectionate communities, the dissenter must be respectful of the irregular paces she might put them through. A seed planter is not experiencing the same fellowship as the harvesters.
Artist and poets who are often dissenters, if not always, create their own sub-communities in order to teach each other the proper social steps which engage the encompassing community.
I am coming to this artful community with more energy and purposefulness lately. I have to name myself Artist. No one else can.
I must also deal with the dissenting quality of an artist, who is not so named to satisfy a hunger for notariaty or position, as I am learning, but merely a word of description.
People may admire art or poetry for the mystery of it, but if doesn't effect change, the community is itself poverty stricken. Artistry is not always rewarding. It has within it a mysterious fellowship. An artist can find her life within that fellowship. Each unique person, no matter what their labor, has their fellowship which then nurtures the other members.
There is an interdependence within the community that must loosely grasp by respect the unique poverty of each of its members. We don't belong to each other because we must, but because each one of us contains a unique gift with the freedom to give when it's fruition comes in season.
Even if it's the gift of dissenting.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Happy 17 Jacob

Alain and I warmed up the Industrial Cottage and produced a shirt for our friend.
serendipity ruled the day as I had a vintage pattern from '68 and yardage that I bought in Carmel last summer. We made the v-neck of Jake's dreams.

Credit to Alain for the idea and impute. He can sew now, putting in the hours for pinning, cutting and machine operation.






Get Yours





Support the Protest

Saturday, October 21, 2006

vapored fresco

You walk barefoot silent along dark stone, the infinite
come small
You come years and years through musty kitchen dust
brushed off
You shape hair and smile in chorus sung broadly, plaited
wax and fibers twining
You kiss tender beads to marble, standing, catching,
caressing music
You tell plays and swinging hammers, clay to seaglass
treasured findings, worshiped Godhead

You bear children
You seed kinfolk
You smile broadly
You pass doorframes
You see moonlight
You crown princes
You cover homeless

You voice sighs in waiting rooms, cast peppered, wrought
and bloody
You yearn singular life, our one and only, scattered seed
born; multiply many

You wait
You watch
You live
You listen manifest in new days stretched membrane thin
to press your lips I'm hearing

-written 8/11/06

Monday, October 09, 2006

Some Things Worth Saving


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My friend gave me this. She received a box from her mother's friend. It had all the scraps of calico purchased from the local department store where she lived in 1960's Iowa. Amoungst the quirky fabric was this child's pattern tenderly folded in a clear brown sugar plastic baggie (the elder saved everything of use. Recycling before it was a planitary caution) To get warmed up for my Industrious Cottage of sewing my own garments, I made up the vintage pattern.

I'll post the results when the buttons are sewn...

Monday, October 02, 2006

A Group

The first Knitting Blog Group I ever was excited to join is now posting some great creations by fellow Elizabeth Zimmerman Enthusiasts. I thought I would show off a few of my own on this bit of turf.