The last of Clare's poems. -- Gabriel

Her sister hands her a bobbin, freshly spun.
She finds a spot and works it in,
mingling the colors around it.
Her needles click, gently ticking:
each stitch a year,
each strand a soul.

Her sister gives yarn almost faster than she can use it.
Green, brown, blue, red;
every color that exists is here,
each has its right place.

She only stops when the needles catch nothing.
Some strands are long. Some are short.
Each touches many others
in its stretching, slippery, grasping
lifetime.