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Mary Effie Lee Newsome
I have the greatest fun at night,
When casement windows are all bright.
I make believe each one’s a square
Of some great quilt up in the air.
The blocks of gold have black between,
Wherever only night is seen.
It surely makes a mammoth quilt--
With bits of dark and checks of gilt--
To cover up the tired day
In such a cozy sort of way.
When the dawn unfolds like a bolt of ribbon
Thrown through my window,
I know that hours of light
Are about to thrust themselves into me
Like omnivorous needles into listless cloth,
Threaded with the heavy colours of the sun.
They seem altogether too eager
To embroider this thing of mine,
My Day,
Into the strict patterns of an altar cloth;
Or at least to stitch it into a useful garment.
But I know they will do nothing of the kind.
They will prick away.
And when they are through with it
It will look like the patch quilt my grandmother made
When she was learning to sew.