Purling Lessons

by Brooke Newey

When thinking of summer

My mind greets the cracked, hot earth

Like my grandmother’s hands,

Slipping two lightning-blue needles

Into my clammy white palms.

Her worn, yellowed fingers

Slowly molded my hands

Around the soft yarn,

Weaving twilight knots

That vanished when I was alone.

She brought out her basket,

A cloud of intricate designs

Whispering a woodwind voice in my ear:

“This one is for your family next Christmas.”

Her hands held a thin cobweb of cloth

Fluid and familiar as rich brown milk.

“Don’t tell them about it; it’s a surprise.”

I kept the secret (maybe too well);

Time wears hard on such things

After cocooning within it by firelight,

Finding a handy tent within its folds

Or mashing it together for a pillow;

Time can surely wear hard—

But I remember, Grandmother.

It rests on my bed now;

The fringe is no longer a feathered mist;

Its pattern waltzes madly about,

But I remember—

I remember needles dancing,

Reflecting the suns of summers past,

The bright sharp shards of memory,

And two gnarled hands

Creating beauty, like magic, from nothing.