Quiltmaker...wish I'd written this

Poem by Luci Shaw:

QUILTMAKER

"I make them warm to keep my family from freezing;

I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking."

--From the journal of a prairie woman, 1870

"To keep a husband and five children warm,

she quilts them covers thick as drifts against

the door. Through every fleshy square white threads

needle their almost invisible tracks; her hours

count each small suture that holds together

the raw-cut, uncolored edges of her life.

She pieces each one beautiful, and summer bright

to thaw her frozen soul. Under her fingers

the scraps grow to green birds and purple

improbable leaves; deeper than calico, her mid-winter

mind bursts into flowers. She watches them unfold

between the double stars, the wedding rings."

Quoted from Moving Into Light, Poems by Luci Shaw