peacework

Peace by piece
patch by ragged patch
we put this quilt together.
Everybody has a story to contribute:
a tale of undeserved forgiveness
a time of unexpected generosity
a gift of grace and gratitude.
In every color of the rainbow
we stitch and sew
trying our best to hold our quilt together.
Even though we’d like to forget
we know we must include
every hard-won peace,
all the patches we used to cover up the holes
we made rubbing each other the wrong way
until the whole cloth thinned
and finally gave way beneath the strain.
These, too, we must bring to the table
to negotiate our peace,
as we piece our crazy quilt together.
All that humility-toughened cotton
makes good thread
that won’t come undone over time or under stress,
that can’t be torn apart by malice.
We need every “I’m sorry”
“I was thoughtless”
“Please forgive me”
all the “Thank you’s” we can muster
as over and over and over and under
we repeat these phrases
which serve as stitches
for the weak places in our love.
Over and over we doublestitch
our mantras until we think we’ve become too tired
too jaded
or that finally we’ve learned our lesson and can quit,
but knowing deep down the quilt is everything
we continue sowing peace:
red for anger
blue for hurt
green for envy
black for every hidden curse.
And next to these:
red for passion
blue for joy
green for healing
pink for love
black for all the magic we will need
to hold this thing together.
Peace by piece
we leave out nothing—
not the torn t-shirt from the march on Washington
or the sweat-stained blouse from the Peace Corps volunteer;
not the faded head rag worn by a civil rights grandmother
or the flowered bell-bottoms left over from the ‘60’s;
not even the olive drabs and cammies from the backs of our dead soldiers
or the torn corner of a flag they carried.
We use them all—
the bloody rags fresh from the fists
of our perceived differences
the white sheet of surrender
the misplaced blanket of our apathy
the ticking of the cloth when we forgot
we couldn’t stop
that there is always peacework left to do.
Here we are rag pickers all
until we’ve pieced together one story
not his story
or her story
but our story
this story
of how we put the pieces back together
into a quilt for the hope chests of our children
and our children’s children.

Mendy Knott Nov 2003