with second sight, she pushes

sitting close to light

falling through a window

glancing down a needle

along a thread

to the centre

of a bright bead

is her belief

in petal, stem, and leaf

she directs a long thin needle

picks one tiny seed

bead, after seed

bead, after seed

from a saucer

until she has drawn a long white string with

her fingers

at the end of a needle

her fingers, nudge their seeds side by side

looping their weight into a petal

laid flat against the fabric nap

each seed pressed

against the cloth by the thumb and forefinger of her left hand

while thumb and forefinger of her right

plumb the unseen side of the fabric with

another needle and thread, and

with second sight, she pushes

the needle and thread up precisely

where her eye wants to meet it

on the surface of the fabric

then down

between each bead

by seed bead

seed

over and over

repeated

this gesture petal

takes patient shape

o

the bead’s colour makes no sound

but it is cranberry, moss, and fireweed

it is also wolf willow, sap, and sawdust

as well as Chickadee, Magpie, and Jackrabbit

a bead is not simply dark blue

but Saskatoon blue

it’s not merely black,

but beaver head black

and it’s not just a seed bead

it’s a number 11 pearlized bead

or a number 10 two-cut glass bead

or a number 8 French white heart

o

the fabric weightless

supple through her lissome fingers

the waxed thread yielding

and the bright beads

obedient as good children

lining up in straight rows

inside the white outline

of a petal

but as she shifts

to light

falling on her beadwork

her thoughts turn to stem

how it attaches

to petal and leaf

slim stem

bloodline to root

and back to leaf

and she the link

like stem

from rich root

to sprouting leaf

her children

she, this link

holds

each beadberry

a thought

each beadberry

a word in prayer

for her son

for her daughter

for her grandchild

o

she considers blue beads as holding a piece of the sky

reflected in berries

her same fingers gather saskatoons draping from branches bent blue with fruit

and release them to the lard pail tied to her waist

their dropping, the sound of small drumming in the pail

her same fingers scoop saskatoons, the fruit of feasts

from a bowl in the sweat

that place of gathering self

and others back to womb

that bulb of life

in her mother

each bead a birth, she senses

as light grows faint as thread

each bead a birth, she sees

her eyesight fine as thread

each bead a birth, she listens

each bead sewn down, a word                 in prayer