MANTRA: The Quilt

LAST NIGHT

Last Night, I sewed a quilt for you

Last Night, I stitched over 360 patterns for you

Last Night, I needled in and out for you, out and in for you

Last night I sewed a quilt for you

I mixed yellow in with white, green with blue, I added

purple to orange, brown to beige and gold to silver too.

Last Night I weaved love into pain

I threaded tomorrow into today and truth into justice

I put the bees in with the birds, the trees with the clouds

I combined elephants with crocodiles, lions with rabbits

I put roses with lilac, hyssop with juniper

cinnamon in with vanilla, and honey with seaweed

I sprinkled salt with a dabble of coconut milk

Last Night I braided my glass pots in with my ceramic jars

I took crystal and put it with rock, I took a wood panel from my floor and cotton

curtains from the window, I took a lock of my hair

and twisted it with an Aunk from a bracelet

I took those old pictures of your mother and combined them

with my grandfathers war photos

Last Night, I sewed a quilt for you

I knitted kidneys with hearts, tongues with toes, pericardium

with gallbladder, uterus with pineal gland, liver with spine

lung with large intestine, legs with hands, knuckles with earlobes,

eyes with mouth and spirit with soul

Last Night I sewed a quilt for you

And once I finished I wrapped it around my body

to collect all of the juices of my labor

with admiration and love I folded, and pressed, rolled and packed

With a lick from my lips and a star shaped kiss,

I laced it with honeysuckle vine and tied it with a butterfly bow

And gently, very delicately I tucked it in our sacred place

That quite comforting place at the left side of my right pupil

That small dark spot that you always seem to acknowledge,

I placed the quilt there

And that way I’ll always keep the love that I have for you safe and treasured

Never to be stolen, never to be taken or given away

And in that way, every time you look into my eyes you’ll know the depth

of my love, the seas of my being, the heart of my existence and you

will Never, never forget who I am.