April is National Poetry Month — and to celebrate, Bonny, Kat, Sarah, and I are sharing some poetry each Thursday in April. Today . . . is Poem in Your Pocket Day, so we’ll each be sharing a favorite short-and-sweet poem that should fit right into your pocket!
How to Knit a Sweater (a Realist’s Prayer)
by Barbara KingsolverO Lord
(whether male, female,
animate, all-knowing,
unreasonable or just
whether or not),
we are practical people
who hedge our bets.
As I hold my loved ones
this day in my thoughts,
meditating on our hopes
and wild adversities,
I also hold a skein
of good wool,
needles that click like
rosary beads working
through Hail Marys
of knit and purl.
By involving fiber
in my invocation
of divinity,
I feel assured
of a fairly positive outcome.
Happy National Poetry Month. I hope you’ve enjoyed our month-long celebration of poetry.
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Today’s poem is from How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) by Barbara Kingsolver, and published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2020. For more information about today’s poet, click here.
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Then be sure to visit Bonny, Kat, and Sarah to gather more poems for your pockets!
What a great poem! (in so many ways!) It is going right into my pocket!
So very appropriate and so true! I especially like her parenthetical qualifications in the beginning. This one has a place in my knitting bag!
So, so good. Now I’ve got 4 poems in my pocket(s) thanks to you, Kat, Bonny and Sarah. You all shared such wonderful poems today (and throughout the month). I’m off to email Colin and my friend Leslie to wish them a Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!
This is so perfect — poetry AND knitting!
I didn’t know Barbara Kingsolver had such a keen understanding of being a knitter. Perfect poem for us today!
Kym, you sneakily sucked me in with Barbara Kingsolver…and I love her flattering black sweater in that website photo. Chloe
How perfect. I have known that Kingsolver is a knitter but this poem is wonderful confirmation that she is one of us. I love the idea of including fiber in an invocation.