National Poetry Month

"In the rhythm of the needles,            there is music for the soul."            --- from an old sampler

In honor of National Poetry month, and since knitting is a musical, poetic activity (and since I personally enjoy writing poetry) here are a few poems celebrating knitting:

ODE TO MY SOCKS

(Translated by Robert Bly)

Mara Mori brought me

a pair of socks

which she knitted herself

with her sheepherder's hands,

two socks as soft as rabbits.

I slipped my feet into them

as though into two cases

knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin.

Violent socks,

my feet were two fish made of wool,

two long sharks

sea blue, shot through

by one golden thread,

two immense blackbirds,

two cannons,

my feet were honored in this way

by these heavenly socks.

They were so handsome for the first time

my feet seemed to me unacceptable

like two decrepit firemen,

firemen unworthy of that woven fire,

of those glowing socks.

 

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp tempation

to save them somewhere as schoolboys

keep fireflies,

as learned men collect

sacred texts,

I resisted the mad impulse to put them

in a golden cage and each day give them

birdseed and pieces of pink melon.

Like explorers in the jungle

who hand over the very rare green deer

to the spit and eat it with remorse,

I stretched out my feet and pulled on

the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

 

The moral of my ode is this:

beauty is twice beauty,

and what is good is doubly good

when it is a matter of two socks

made of wool in winter.

Winding Wool

by Robert Service

 

She'd bring to me a skein of wool

And beg me to hold out my hands;

so on my pipe I cease to pull

And watch her twine the shining strands

Into a ball so snug and neat,

Perchance a pair of socks to knit

To comfort my unworthy feet,

Or pullover my girth to fit.

As to the winding I would sway,

A poem in my head would sing,

And I would watch in dreamy way

The bright yarn swiftly slendering.

The best I liked were coloured strands

I let my pensive pipe grow cool . . .

Two active and two passive hands,

So busy winding shining wool.

Alas! Two of those hands are cold,

And in these days of wrath and wrong,

I am so wearyful and old,

I wonder if I've lived too long.

So in my loneliness I sit

And dream of sweet domestic rule . . .

When gentle women used to knit,

And men were happy winding wool.

 

Happy Poetry Month and cozy knitting, everyone!