An Arras Tapestry

In clockstruck Arras stars come broaching the frames where grave

folk lie waking.

In the least of rooms, stretched among sheets and chimes, body

like the weft of an old design, lies the beginning of the gravest

-a child threading dreams, as shadows loom and shuttle in

the stone shires.

In the hempen hours, grieving for light among his greylings,

flesh taut upon the bedframe, boneframe, stead shaking in

shadow, he shall pass beneath the steeples' bobbins tracing

dream and age upon a warp of hours-all folk woven in the

tapestry of town and star:

for silence shall comb this waking and his sleep, the gathered

umber be raveled, strand and chime.