Poem: Pattern

Life as fabric---stay with me, this one's pretty good.

Pattern If my life is fabric, what’s the cloth? Warp and woof, threads crossing, and mine run lengthwise from birth to death The tangle a meaningless pile, a skein without strength, but for the cross-thread Those who wound themselves around and through my life, pulling taut what lay in useless form, mingling colors, the red of envy, enlightened yellow, soft green that speaks of inner peace Moods, pale blue to black Taking me up and laying me down, re-worked and newly shaped How many? Too many, not enough Each face that waited patient years to glance and turn away, walk on, never speaking, and even so their thread knotted in my own Every banker that turned me down and child that held me up in too harsh a light to understand, drew a thread across mine, a shuttle cast back or forth, intricacy of pattern in this ancient, newborn, weaver’s art In a lifetime, a tapestry or shroud There was a time I fooled myself into forcing patterns, selecting colors, as if such a thing were no more difficult than a clansman’s noble pattern Will I make of myself a MacKenzie or a Tartan Plaid? The foolishness of willful years, not yet gone This may sound as though I’ve learned something worth the passing on If only it were so, something to teach for god’s sake, worth learning Some reason to write these words that you might take away, to work into the scheme of your design Because you’ve brightened mine, even in the darker colors of misunderstanding I can’t get back to look at it, my face too pressed against the weaving Wouldn’t recognize it anyway as mine Whatever final pattern, your strand is there

This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection THE SMELL OF TWEED AND TOBACCO available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats.