In Order To Continue

(The process of renewal involves all the artists weaving in out with each other as they perform.)

I see her as I see me, sitting on chairs before the impact of our craft,
both intent on making a story out of a sequence, a gift out of repetition,
her stitch is my letter, her design is my phrase,
thread weave through out and in, through out and in,
she is framed by a mountainous fig tree,
I have the hallway of wedding and christening photos,
her eyes meld to hands to thread to tsimbi to glosi,
to caterpillar turrets to butterfly balconies,
to geometrical dreamscapes of Venetian ladies
that is the myth from linen,
she is the story on linen,
no longer woman in small village sitting under a tree for days months years
of thread weave through out and in,
our skin an embroidery of old maps and new, Lefkara, Larnaca, Kyrenia, Hartchia,
Riverwood, Bankstown, Lalor, Reservoir, thread weave through out and in,
she lives in each strand of cotton perle, the white, the brown, the ecru,
she peeks through gofti, through fairy windows, and sees me,
letter by letter, crossing the keyboard, thread weave through out and in,
she sees her children’s children not work in fields harvesting rotten crops,
not work in factories making hard, rough, poisonous things,
not work in shops selling dry, fried food,
she sees a series of baby girls named after her, dressed in white,
she lives in the stroke of a foreign letter
by letter, word by word,
thread, weave through out and in.