As to Why We Will Not Stop (Making the Hats) by Sophie Cabot Black

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 7, 2017   As to Why We Will Not Stop (Making the Hats)   Sophie Cabot Black

This time it does not begin with the beaver Instead only halfway up the mountain Where the sheep we keep each year come through   Winter enough to answer us, enough For us to shear, deft before the coming storm, To take away from the body what it did not know   It grew and then astonished each spring to feel  The quickening of the lamb, the heft of Sudden weight crossing one more patch   Of snow. All with an eye out For the cougar or some such animal Of which the DNA is no longer   What it might have been, the coyote now As part dog part wolf    Already commonplace. We have come to know the truth   As no longer true— the old ways do not work Against the new. How to reconcile the bear As she comes down to what we now call ours   And how to prepare for the unforeseen As we throw each sheep handily on their back To begin at the belly—fleece to shear,   To wash, and pick, to card, to bale, to weigh, To the depot where all will be spun, dyed Into the wool we want, knowing it can be done   Again and again without much death For the sheep she rises, shakes herself Back into where she was before: grass, lamb;   Watches until we have pulled away, As we head back down the mountain— And in something like ability, or capacity,    The condition of being human, or female, Or both, we want to knit this out, into Dawn light, into a long stream   Of making sense, into where we will go next, Into skeins of design and colors Of what blood can mean, pinks   Such as rose or carmine, wanton or nearly red, Timid or raw, healing or newly born, Scarlet, blaze, bloom, or shell, or blush,   Like the small fingers of a wakening child, Each stitch to repeat, purl and dispatch, To get this done, and into that which   We can call sustainable, so those from behind Can choose from the many hues; likewise To walk forward with covered or uncovered heads.            Copyright © 2017 Sophie Cabot Black. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "One of the most powerful images at our biggest protest march yet, earlier this year in Washington DC, was one of the ever-moving sea of pink hats. The hat-project came together so quickly, and many hands were put to knitting hats for those who were to march, from those who could not be there. After I came home with my family, still feeling great unrest, I decided to make hats for all our DC hosts, especially as I had this sense we would be back, again, marching and singing, signing and moving. Also: this poem is informed by my mother's project of raising sheep; shearing, carding, spinning and then finally, knitting. We were not great at it, but the yarn has a rather existential feel in my hands—having been through so much to get here." —Sophie Cabot Black   Sophie Cabot Black is the author of The Exchange (Graywolf Press, 2013). She teaches at the 92nd Street Y in New York City and lives on a small farm in New England. Poetry by Cabot Black   The Exchange (Graywolf Press, 2013) "Did Not Come Back" by Lucie Brock-Broido "The One Secret That Has Carried" by Jason Shinder "Magdalene—The Seven Devils" by Marie Howe Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038