Corked

Last Sunday, was it really only yesterday, I read at the open mic in Odd Sundays at Corked and welcomed my good friend Heather Browne, a former president of the WFNB,  back to Fredericton after a lengthy absence. I read two poems about Maritime writers, one of whom, Alistair MacLeod, I met for the first time, a long time ago, at Heather’s house. Such wonderful memories.

I am wearing the second scarf I bought in Oaxaca, Mexico. Hand made with natural dyes for all of the colors. Scarf: such a limited word. In Oaxaca it is a rebozo. It serves as a dance, a sling for carrying young babies, a cummerbund, a carrier bag (reusable), and also as a weapon, for it can be slipped over an antagonist’s head and drawn down behind the knees to throw the assailant to the ground.

Scarf, indeed. I am wearing one of my many rebozos. I knew the woman who wove this one, and the woman who picked the plants that she dried, ground, and turned into colors, and the man who herded the sheep, and the villager who sheared them, and the three old women who spun, measured, and cut the thread.

No sweat shop production this: a proud product of a flourishing village industry where everyone knows everyone else and goods are sold and exchanged at full and fair value. We have lost so much. I hope one day we will get some of it back.