Song for a Flemish Tapestry Weaver

You built a place of make believe

And strung it up in gold

When home was but a word to you

A story never told

With silken strands between your fingers

And pictures in your head

You took a thing of darkness

And made it bright instead

There’s laughter in the edges

There’s salt between the wefts

And in it stays although it frays

The story you have left

But I have got a wayward mind

That winces out in pain

It sees the future and it thinks

That nothing will remain

But then I think of emerald trees

Of how to paint what’s true

Of how you thread a fruit so red

Or weave a lake so blue

And did the hunters ever find

The creatures that they sought

Did the dogs all fall behind

Or do as they were taught

Did the pheasants stay beneath

The wild and tangled brush

When the pistol gave the shout

That stupid frenzied rush

Did the castle stay upright

Or did it one day fall

To sieges or the lake beneath

To nobody at all

I still don’t know if anything Can ever truly stay

Or if there is a reason

That life was built this way

But reasons are a human thing They falter and they sleep

And if the sky’s a golden string

If tomorrow the birds will sing

If you can make resplendent things

Then briefly, it is ours to keep

—MP