Yarn by Emma Harding

the

    needles

            click, 

                the 

                    ball 

                       jumps,

                         the thread slips 

                          through my fingers.

                          stitch after stitch, loop joining loop, 

                          entwining to form rows, those rows

                          lining up, taking shape, becoming material. 

                          my mind wanders, following the trail of yarn,

                          spinning back over millennia.

                          back to an age of thunder, the bellow of vast machines,

                          grinding lives and land into miles of cloth,

                          enough to build an empire.

                          further back to when the loom’s rhythmic crack and knock

                          sung loud from bright-eyed Yorkshire cottages,

                          that illuminate the weaver’s intricate craft.

                          and thence to a world made of wool,

                          churches and grand houses built on its trade,

                          wars financed and kingdoms secured.

                          the yarn twists into myth, telling tales of ingenuity and magic:

                          of Penelope, stringing suitors along on unspun thread,

                          and Ariadne, unravelling the labyrinth to guide Theseus through,

                          of Arachne, whose prowess led to an eternity of web making,

                          and a beautiful princess, spinning-wheel-spiked to a century of sleep,

                          and the Lady of Shalott, doomed to weave a world to see by.

                          is this what we as storytellers do?
                          stitch by stitch, we spin our yarns,
                          fabricating worlds to see them more clearly?

                                                              back in my fingertips

                                                                            the needles click,

                                                                                     the ball jumps,

                                                                                       a pattern emerges.