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new jacket and navajo weaver
by j.lewis new jacket (for Julie) tightly she holds the merry-go-round shivers as it bumps and grinds now fast now slow her arms ache as she counts another circle done and frowns to think she has traveled so far just to come back home she stands and is silent eyes closed in focused reflection reliving the ride the high and low tide shipwrecks safe harbors deserts and gardens feels them all again as if they were only a moment away weighs the good and bad in optimistic balances then smiles in a puddle-mirror she stops to study the image of the child she was in the woman she is pleased to see how well she fits the jacket of this newest year navajo weaver her loom is handmade sheep hand-raised wool hand-sheared hand-cleaned hand-carded plants for dyes she handpicked with her cousin when the color of the evening sky behind the starkness of spider-woman rock hung hazy muted lavender like russian thistle blossoms dried and steeped for hours the water waiting only the yarn of what would be for her another labor of need need to pay a bill feed a family grandchildren too young to be of any help children gone here and there some to work some to drink one to california the pattern grows row by row mind to hand to thread it was a full winter ago this thread was spun when the snow was too deep for even their horse to challenge the snows had caught them unprepared and except for emergency food and hay helicoptered in they would have grown very thin but would not have complained would not have dared offend the earth, the gods, the elements by seeming ungrateful for life however harsh she never draws her patterns simply conceives them and weaves them into something she hopes will please the trader she pauses thinking ahead how they will bargain politely (she taught him the art) and she will feel she has won if she takes home an extra bag of flour the twenty-five-pound bluebird brand and cash enough for gasoline doesn't worry past that or wonder who will own her latest work and will they understand the "ch'iindi" trail the purposeful imperfect line woven in to let her spirit out today she wonders only why the child in california is so silent |
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