Poem #33: Tapestry

Like a solitary droplet of blood,
a barn sewn onto white snow.
Envision a needle poised sky-high,
an eye the world could fit into,
an unimaginably large hand, god-like.

Not too far from the barn,
a patched clapboard church,
churchgoers speckle the hillside
coming down, as if to a ringing bell,
for a morning of winter worship.

The sun frays outward, rays dangling
like strings, melting things. Imagine the maker
breaking thread with teeth, like an ordinary artist,
while pulling it together—stories, lives,
the fabric of it all stitch by delicate stitch.

And out from the church in the vale,
a small town with a school, a hospital,
and a museum, and then other towns,
and cities, countries, continents, and bodies
of water. All the busy people!

And if something were to get a grip
and pull and rip, tearing at the pieces,
unraveling the stories, the lives,
finding the threadbare, the weak spots,
could the holes wrought ever truly be mended?