Beneath her beige cotton shawl, the old goblin lady sat hunched, arthritic and knitting.
This was in the beginning.
She knitted the lands,
The oceans,
The monsters and
Winds.
She knitted things into the fabric of being.
Her swollen knuckles fastened the elemental wool– loop over loop—stopping only to wipe her nose (which was a little runny in the chill of the wind).
Down from her needles fell a plant,
a wombat,
a mountain.
Layer and layer of cosmic fleece caught the light of the setting sun. And when dusk was over,
she knitted the moon.
Toothless and haggard, the goblin pulled the string.
This was in the beginning;
And when she finally ran out of wool, she unpicked older things to knit something new in their place.
The same way
Old jumpers
Are unpicked anew.
Destruction—another form of creation.
The light became too dull out, so she paused a moment to strap a headlamp to her skull.
She was too old for candles,
and these LED’s don’t flicker.
“Plus… they’re better for my environment” she muttered,
because cosmic fleece is also quite flammable.
Like waves in an ocean occur, break
and fade,
the knitting is a process.
Never quite finished.
Un pick
Un snip
Re knit
Re wake.
This was in the beginning.
People came and went, each knitted, unpicked and reknitted with the same elemental wool.
Each asking the same questions:
“Why am I here?” They’d say, still naked and fresh.
“I knitted you out of wool, hon” she’d murmur in the dark.
And so they came to be afraid of the dark.
“What’s the point to all this?” They’d ask, now taller and frayed.
“You decide, beauty, ” She’d whisper back. “All the points I have are my needles”
And so they made spears of their own and hunted each other.
“Where is my God in all this War?” they’d beg.
“I’m here to restitch you, as you fall apart” she’d sigh
but they never saw the stitches–
as they were made of stitches themselves.
This was in the beginning.
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