For hurry is a form of violence and contrary
to the laws of wholeness.
For the laws of wholeness are a pattern handed down,
page after page of materials needed—
yardage, colors and plies of thread, names of rivers,
shapes of leaves, shapes of sentences and titles
—the pages unnumbered and no instruction.
For there is no instruction on how to marry
the work of the hands and the words
of the river. By way of promise
it can be done, only a needle with a bitten-off
tail of thread stuck in the arm of an empty easy chair.
For the tale of thread goes back twenty thousand
years—drop spindles spinning sixteen hours for the thread
of single hour’s weaving.
For a single hour’s weaving is not to be entered
into lightly but with all the gravity of the drop spindle,
its tender weight, its small
serious spin
a world
held
holding
held