I tie tiny knots one after another, hours following patterned arrows on a chart—forward knot, backward knot, one half hitch to the right and one to the left—until the colors of the embroidery floss twine and wind into patches, rows, chevron, diamonds. I spin without clock, the pattern laid before me like the strange wheel of the orb weaver in the breezeway lamp. The spider is she who creates beauty not for its sake: the beauty is incidental to the nature of the web, a hunter’s tool. And what tool do I tie in a small band of color around the wrist of my daughter, my lover, my mother? In each knot, a prayer, a thought of the other—hands at keyboards and fingers around crayons and palms on greenware clay, age spots and caresses and the wringing out of all days. In the belly of the knots, the bracelet holds the sweat of a whole summer, soap residue of every shower in which for a moment, the shoulders relax. I tie knots to bind my fingers around the wrists of everyone I love. I hunt for the caress of cotton, for 4 a.m. fast asleep, for the yes to days’ work, inexplicable. Inexhaustible. The eye catching on the color of the banded wrist—there, my small prize of pleasure.
Labels: community, crafts, creativity, family, gratitude, motherhood, poetry