Reds. "Holding Things"

Paint and Textiles.

February 2025

21 Dawson Street. Dublin 1.

In Stitches

Longitude,
Latitude,
this way and that.
Braiding a ribbon.
Twisting a plait.

Arriving and leaving.
Knotting and weaving.

Dying and fixing,
Stirring and mixing.
Casting on stitches,
alchemy’s glitches,

Shuttles and needles,
sailings and seagulls,
Casting nets wide,
marks of the tide.

Inning and outing,
cursing and shouting.

Makers making,
menders mending,
stooping and bending,
beginning and ending.

Cutter and sewer
life getting slower.
Dropping a stitch,
counting the loss.
This isn’t the last time
Cables will cross.

In Folds.

In folds.
in lines,
between the stitches.
Rows in ditches.
French seams
like sunbeams.
Faces,
traces of
places
we’ve been.
Tilos,
Greece,
where I bought that piece
of lace
with the trace
of gold,
old stories
hold
within each fold.

Folds
in clothes
from yesteryears.
Young tears
but no fear
of rip
or tear
in old tattered
Wear.
Denim
was heaven.
Leather
was forever.
Now tweed coats
hang from the pegs,
filled with stories,
inventories,
tobacco smoke,
fires stoked.

White linen cloths
cover the stain
that embroidered shamrocks
cannot retain.
It’s the end of the day.
Crisp cotton sheets
under blankets tucked too tight.
Mokey Joe
Says goodnight.

Sitting close
folds on the skin
holding together.
No Stitch, no pin.
Written in weaves
out and in.
Keeping sacred
all within.
The universe,
the heavens,
the earth
and the stars.
Fabric folds
and holds
memories.
Its own and ours.