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Posts Tagged ‘circle’

Sewing Circle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 8, 2022| 7 Comments »




It feels right to learn the stem stitch,
to embroider bright floss through the cloth,
to move the needle and watch words emerge
in long and ropy loops.

It feels right to sit at the oblong table
with my daughter and women I’ve only just met,
where the talk is light and we laugh
as bright thread slips through our fingers.

There are so many ways the world
is falling apart. So when the teacher explains,
We step and we float, as a method for moving
from one letter to another, I take notice:

How easy it can be to change, to start something new.
How easy to connect what seems separate.
I look across the table where my daughter
concentrates on her message in lavender and blue.

What a gift to learn these lessons together.
Not too loose. Not too tight. Stay consistent, smooth.
It feels right that I stitch my skirt into the project.
Some things can be undone.

O sweet, the lack of drama, the stakes so low.
How sweet, to share this moment, heads bowed.
Because fear, because sorrow, because hopelessness,
bless these circles where we come together

and make beauty. We step and we float,
step and float, linking one moment to the next,
we step and float, meeting the world
and each other one stitch at a time.

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After Reading an Equation for How to Measure Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, I Remember the Day in College When

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 21, 2014| 1 Comment »

the math teacher walked through the door
and went straight to the empty blackboard.
He did not say a word, did not look
at the class. He drew a perfect circle.
Then with his back to our eyes,
he began to write the proof for the area
of a circle. His chalk clicked against the emptiness,
filling the space with points x and y and
cos and sin and theta and n and limits and infinity.
The room was cold. The proof was brief
and elegant. He stood back and crossed his arms
over his chest as he stared at the work.
That, he said in a voice both humbled and grand,
is more beautiful than any poem ever written.
Though I could not feel any warmth for the proof,
nor for the man who averted our gaze, I did admire
his reverence, and drew in my notebook
an imperfect circle more like the shape of a peach—
something sweet and golden and soft,
its juice about to spill across the page.

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