Genowewa
Thread and needle
needle and thread
keep us safe
strike our enemies dead
Sewing, sewing always sewing
when will the thyme come to reap?
Sewing, sewing, steppes of cloth
Stepping out of line from the Russians wrath
Thread and needle
Needle and thread
Rosehip tea and scavenged bread
Sewing sewing always sewing
no time to stop, no time to weep
Sewing sewing, growing hope
Sewing the way for me to cope
Needle and thread
thread and need
turning honey into mead
Thread to follow through the maze of life
Needle that pierces our pain and strife
Thread and Need
Needle tread
walk for miles
so many dead
Threadbare but sewing
sewing still
sewing healthy, sewing ill
Matchstick legs and needle fingers
life still here, life that lingers
Thread and needle
needle and three
walking West
to hope, to liberty.
1 comment:
This is a poem about my great grandmother, who stood up to the Russians when they came, and insisted that she would take her sewing machine with her or die there. The soldiers could not believe it, but they let her take it, and it saved her life and the lives of her twin daughters as it gave her a means of providing a meagre income out in the kazakh steppe.
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