quilting

Come grateful to the roof,
and spread silk colours like a quilt -
and sigh the prayers of everyday,
like steam on snow, to melt away
the tears that stay upon my cheeks
and fasten to the years and weeks -
and love the colours and the feel
of mud and straw, of brick and steel
that build a home and place to start,
to grow the sturdy little hearts
who climb the trees to touch the clouds
whose gilded cloths form evening shrouds.

My quilts are raveling to and fro.
The colours fly. The colours glow.
The smoke, it rises from the hearth
as prayers to heaven from this earth -
and singing songs, and slopping hens,
and guiding chubby hands on pens,
and wandering like smoky haze -
I grateful come to quilt my days
upon the roof,
and spread silk colours, truth on truth.

I brighten heaven with my work;
it warms the home that gave me birth.