Thread

The prairie
is a patchwork quilt
sewn by a steady hand
in green and brown and yellow.
I knew it without knowing it
that first time
flying into to the place
I had left because
there was no patch there
for me—

out of body, floating
detached and discerning
naming instantly that town
that highway, that hill
that river, that coulee
that place I did that thing
that time
long ago.

The pattern
a map sketched
on a leaf in the book
of my brain
forgotten, yellowed
crumpled, rediscovered
flattening under the hand
of habit and memory.

The needle of my eyes
sewing it up
punching in and out
a tail of thread tugging
its way insistently
through the fibre of home.

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