Lace - poem

Lace is always old.
An edge of a wedding dress, scarce worn
over a bed of satin, stained at the hem.
which swings as if it had life.

At the market, the new lace is stiff on bales,
each pattern revolved and released from the bale
a centameter at a time.  As if it might age -
from the passage of light.  The holes are made
by magic, on a tiny island in Greece, where Grandmother
sits stiffly upright and deftly holes.  

"When did you learn to do that?" I say,
"Why did you learn such hard work, when others play?"
She pauses on hole 3, and looks up.

"When I was young," she says tieing it off.  "I saw my Mother
lace-making, she had a cottage industry too.  It's an art that pays,
think of it that-a-way.  You'll never be rich, nor be poor.

Never be flung out of the door.  It's amazing how life can throw you
distances away from where you start."  She shows me how the lace spins
through her hands.  "I love you as much now as I ever will..." she says.
as she fades, fades away.

(c) rjl