Written piece
A STITCH IN TIME
HAIMANTI DUTTA RAY
India
About this piece
My poem is about how quilts are stitched. How, with the passage of time, the tradition is gradually changing.
A STITCH IN TIME
By HAIMANTI DUTTA RAY (Calcutta, INDIA)
Thread by thread, a quilt is stitched
Sewing knows no gender, no country
Warmth of the Sun, sucks all the Vitamin C
Seeing is hardly Knowing
I hardly remember we’re a family of three
Stitched – by generations – to the mother tree
Whose leaves, the green, are the ever-young we
Trees grow – each leaf, a stitch – by bowing …
Generations come and go
We reap only after we sow
Genes bounce, even after we throw
Them far. They run in the blood flow
Winter quilts – loving memories – are slowly wavering …
Just like threading a needle
Genes revolve around the family spindle
Generations evoke an amazing kindle
Photo albums, via memory lane, are images on a steeple ….
Generations come and go. The tree keeps growing ….
Growing and changing ….
As if change is the only constant
The thread that changes. The thread that moves
How Starry Nights evolved into Bharat Mata
Upon the roof –
In time, each stitch
Saves nine. But to the rich
The poor – without quilts –
Drying up in the Sun
Look like a witch
We thread quilts
With love. With care.
The warmth of love
Evaporates
As the quilt tears
But the same is stitched again …
As we fail to fathom a mother’s pain
Insensitive, we shall ever remain.