(scraps and velvet)
Lord, you wither me
My body scorched
like August grass
My mind less
even than that --
like a shadow on the hills
like one cloud passing
And where can I turn
Endless Lord, you wear the ocean
as a scarf
the wind as a ribbon
in your hair
The earth wears out
and you change it like an apron
like a quilt you shake
the patchwork stars
Endless, my days
are short -- Do not
cut them
My God of silks and scraps
of ticking and velvet
let me lean at your knees
as you hum over piecework
My God of the ragbag
with a needle in your mouth --
***
Psalm 102
7 Comments
or, make that:
my ragbag God with a neddle in your mouth
Or does that sound negative (?) I changed the first draft’s “Lady of the ragbag” — which just draws too much attention to itself and overbalances the poem.
“let me lean at your knees” should that be “let me learn at your knees”?
er, no…. why?
Just that learn at your father’s knee is a more common image than lean at your father’s knee. But I guess lean works too; I can see the small child leaning against her father’s knee.
“learn at one’s father’s knee” isn’t an image at all, it’s what Orwell called a dying metaphor — an originally sensory, physical thing that doesn’t take the listener or the writer back to the physical anymore, that’s become just a turn of phrase.
I like “lean at your knee” because it is vividly sensory for me — I remember leaning at my grandmother’s knee when her lap was full of quilting. But I didn’t consider how close “lean” was to “learn,” and that might be a problem. I’ve already rejected something like “sit in your lap” because of the unfortuate sexual overtones.
Oh, and the divinity in this piece is more a mother figure than a father, surely? To me, the ribbon in the hair is girlish.
“lean at your knees” is intimate and I can take an implied “learn” — that’s my vote.
And before I read any of these posts I was going to tell you that, in context, this phrase “My God of the ragbag with a needle in your mouth —” fills me with wonder. I feel his mending and tearing and mending. I would not change a word of it.
I know you are not a Peterson fan and I respect that but you need to know that you bring a freshness that, while entirely different, puts me in mind of the freshness of the Message.
Thank you, Gaven. It means a lot to me that you like this… You are always so generous and genuine with your praise.