As ye sew, so shall ye rip. ~Author Unknown
The Lady With The Sewing-Machine
~ Dame Edith Sitwell
Across the fields as green as spinach,
Cropped as close as Time to Greenwich,
Stands a high house; if at all,
Spring comes like a Paisley shawl —
Patternings meticulous
And youthfully ridiculous.
In each room the yellow sun
Shakes like a canary, run
On run, roulade, and watery trill —
Yellow, meaningless, and shrill.
Face as white as any clock's,
Cased in parsley-dark curled locks —
All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with your steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind,
You shall not: I'll keep it free
Though you turn earth, sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep.
Still procrastinating on sewing the Guide badges. But don't you like my old children's sewing machine pictured above? It must have belonged to my grandmother. I played with it as a child , rusty and cranky though it was, with the table clamp and hand-turned wheel.
Then I graduated to this portable Singer which was in the spare room of my family home, and there I stopped for years until I married and purchased a cute little Husqvarna with which to make curtains. Big mistake. It now resides in a top cupboard. One day I will release it from solitary confinement.
