Monday, May 18, 2015

Instruction

My hands that guide a needle
    In their turn are led
Relentlessly and deftly,
    As a needle leads a thread.

Other hands are teaching
    My needle; when I sew
I feel the cool, thin fingers
    Of hands I do not know.

They urge my needle onward,
    They smooth my seams, until
The worry of my stitches
    Smothers in their skill.

All the tired women,
    Who sewed their lives away,
Speak in my deft fingers
   As I sew today.

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by Hazel Hall, 1921