A woman sits at her western window doing fine embroidery, careful to keep blood off silk when the needle pricks her. Her attention keeps slipping outward: she watches a meadowlark catch a grub in unmowed grass and hears its mate singing nearby. A quiet humor comes from her divided mind. She trims a thread and hides the end, plans to show the row to her partner, and, if it doesn’t please, to unpick the stitching back to the spot where her thoughts drifted. The final cry to the meadowlark—“I must look away! Wonder does not always aid one’s work”—is gently self-scolding. The mood is calm, homely, and faintly amused, holding together the discipline of making and the pull of the living world outside.
Aid — Summary
At her western window, she's stitching. The needle pricks her sometimes. She moves Her hand aside to not bleed on silk.
Even as she works, her waxed thread in Rows appearing like commas, she sees a Western meadowlark pounce in tall grass
Ever growing, unmowed, outside. When She stops, peering over thick lenses To note the meadowlark has a grub, to her
Ears come, faintly, short songs of its mate. Reaching for her scissors, she snips a tail, Nudges it out of sight behind a stitch.
When this row is done, she'll ask her mate If it will do. If not, she'll turn her mother's Needle and pull thread, loop by loop
Down to the place her mind wandered. O meadowlark, I must look away! Wonder does not always aid one's work.