Stitch Witch

Last night a friend kept me up late sharing his poems with me over the phone. What a beautiful thing to hear echoing out of the darkness in winter evening’s chill. That sent me searching through my own poetry, remembering the occasions of life that gifted my voice, or changed it. In my searching I came across a poem about Tita, my grandmother who taught me how to knit at the age of seven.

I was such a brat when she showed me how to knit and to purl (She taught me continental knitting from the start! May her name be forever blessed). I never really had the patience to give her wisdom the attention that it deserved. And yet I think that somehow her hands join with mine now as I knit. I only wish she were still around so I could swathe her in something warm, just like she did for me year after year.

My poetry searchings turned this up, and it made me smile. So tonight I remember my Tita, and the beauty she gifted me, which is still shaping my life.

GIFT

for Tita

I have watched my grandmother

knitting sweaters every year

made just for me.

Each stitch sacrificial

a wearing down of joints

their thin woven slivers

creating a charged netting;

the clicking of ligaments and bones

keeping me warm.

The sweaters were always green

as if somehow she knew

that green would become

my favorite color.

As if she knew that the gift

of her arthritic hands

spinning yards of woven love

would teach me that

green

is the color of life.