by Kathryn Stripling Byer

    Up here in the mountains

    we know what extinct means. We've seen

    how our breath on a bitter night

    fades like a ghost from the window glass.

    We know the wolf's gone.

    The panther. We've heard the old stories

    run down， stutter out

    into silence. Who knows where we're heading？

    All roads seem to lead

    to Millennium， dark roads with drop-offs

    we can't plumb. It's time to be brought up short

    now with the tale-tellers' Listen： There once lived

    a woman named Delphia

    who walked through these hills teaching children

    to read. She was known as a quilter

    whose hand never wearied， a mother

    who raised up two daughters to pass on

    her words like a strong chain of stitches.

    Imagine her sitting among us，

    her quick thimble moving along these lines

    as if to hear every word striking true

    as the stab of her needle through calico.

    While prophets discourse about endings，

    don't you think she'd tell us the world as we know it

    keeps calling us back to beginnings？

    This labor to make our words matter

    is what any good quilter teaches.

    A stitch in time， let's say.

    A blind stitch

    that clings to the edges

    of what's left， the ripped

    scraps and remnants， whatever

    won't stop taking shape even though the whole

    crazy quilt's falling to pieces