the epistemology of thread and beads

 

 

 

and 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 jack-rabbit

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 2-cut glass bead
or a number #10 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
blood line 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 releases 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                 Marilyn Dumont