Nesting

 

Thanks to Marilyn Hazelton for publishing this sequence in red lights. I wrote it years ago on one of the many times artist Nancy Tingey has exhibited at Belconnen Arts Centre.  I always find Nancy's work inspiring!

 

flights of time 

that turn into a nest 

the care 

she takes selecting 

textiles for a patchwork quilt

 

life's scraps 

of twigs leaves and moss 

she recycles 

extra bits of cloth 

from a skirt or dress 

 

bird-worked 

intricate and soft 

art honed 

working day and night 

singing with each stitch

 

speckled eggs 

beneath a feathered breast 

warm and safe 

a mother waits 

resting from her work

 

creation's gift 

how can we express 

the wonder 

of a tucked up child 

a fledgling in its nest

First published in red lights 17:2, 2020.

Fast Garb

Clothing rushes from the factory faster than possible. Products of stolen childhood days in buildings of hopelessness. Mould in the air, teaming with dust mites and particles, finds its way into lungs of the young. Speed feeds and shelters workers and families on a few taka a day till others take over.

buzzing flies
the distant rumble
of a school bus


Invisible fibres detach like seeds in the wind pour from our washing machines, clogging the waterways. Brands we’re ashamed of, we cut them from necklines wear for a season, send to thrift shops, then dump in the landfill of affluence. Where are yesterday’s cotton and wool? Have they dwindled away?


bargain basement
detecting the texture

of fake

First published in Presence 67, 2020.