April Poetry: Gretchen Wing

In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate and highlight our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to again offer daily poetry during April.

Stitch in the Ditch

— by Gretchen Wing —

Such a relief to sew the borders

of a quilt-top whose design

has eaten up vast quantities of time,

and thread, and patience.

Now my book instructs me:

“Stitch in the ditch.”

Straight seam! No pins! No edges!

One speedy cruise down Calico Avenue,

top popped, wind in my hair.

I’ve earned this.

Grinning with abandon,

I roar my machine down three quilt-sides

before I finally think

to check my stitches underneath.

There,

shadowing my perfect topstitch,

a line of lumpy snarls metastasizes.

Where did this come from?

My Singer never hinted of its struggle

to pacify this mass of excess thread—

just hummed along to please my blithe assumptions,

leaving this dark discovery for some later time

when I thought the work completed,

perfect,

ready for display.

Messy-Cut

— by Gretchen Wing —

Glory be to God for dappled things
For beauty in the pied and speckled mess of nature.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins

Piecework–

precise as the name implies–

demands triangles measured to the nth,

seams so straight,

they “know not ‘seems,’” like Hamlet —

only “is,” or “are.”

Squares as sharp as blades

assemble slowly, in perfect piles.

The ruler rules.

I’m not that kind of quilter.

I sew landscapes, not log cabins,

wildflowers, not wedding bands,

blurry gardens impressionistic as Monet’s.

Angles ragged, my seams fray shaggily, like leaves.

The scene awakes. My ruler lies neglected

under heaps of bright batik.

Messy-cuts, the quilt book calls them:

eyes and instinct rule, not inches.

And who would not prefer this carefree slicing

to its counterpart, the fussy-cut?

Who would not feel free to chop away,

to savor the indulgence of design?

Who but the fussy ones

who know better, through pain,

than to confuse the joy of rule-less craft

with the notion that messy cuts are best,

or even right.