Evocation #24 To ravel

Threads of complement and contrast,
(Blue and purple, of course)
Subsumed into the task
of constructing new patterns
in a fabric made
to hold all of life’s joys and sorrows.
Such is the object of marriage -
to ravel!

We do not simply weave,
for weaving allows little room
for flexibility and charisms.
Ravelling is a more tangled bond,
yet expects to work and rework and make new,
going over habits and traditions
and layering deliciousness
- like the honey-nut-laden filo
you turned into baklava
to please the Balmain stallholders
from week to week.

I remain caught up in this ravel,
bound by the ropes of confused stories,
circling around my core,
taunting me - as if to say,
“What can you make of this life now?”

I wake from a nightmare
to find the ravel in a thousand pieces,
sitting in my heart,
waiting to be tied together
to become another jumbled mess.
I try to splice stories together
to find myself
tangled
and full of knots.

There is nothing for it but to cradle the ravel,
to gently carry it and finger the knots,
tickling them from time to time,
teasing them into submission.

(C) A A Koh-Butler, 2020