Threadwork

This morning,
I held a thin thread
and pulled it across
a broken sock
torn at the head,
where the big toe
would poke out.

I held the thin thread
with a certain gravity
of softness
in my fingers

the way notes
of a piano
land gently,
so gently,
that you don’t really notice
when one leaves
just in time
for the next
to follow.

The thread
soft,
like lashes on an eye,
like the quality of light
catching on silk hair.

It was so thin
that my fingers
felt muscular and bulky next to it

To think
that something so slight,
so easily missed,
could mend a wound
that wide,

is to believe
in patience —
quiet, unseen.

There is strength
in the delicacy
of that thread.

There is strength
in the compassion
of your love.

Thread your open heart
behind a firm needle pin,
and allow it to weave

In and out,
up and down
through the rough edges

Allow it to
swim through the small spaces
that seems too small to be seen.

And through the tiny crossings,

fill up the big spaces,
that seemed too wide to mend,
for a thin line in tender traces.

Yet
who’s to say
that what we call small
and tender
isn’t exactly
what holds the world together?