Needlepoint

When my father left the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1966,

and my oldest brother, who’d only known himself as an officer’s son,

had to maneuver high school peers he called civilians,

and my oldest sister started to believe her survival depended on her looks,

when my other brother worked with weights, learned how to throw a punch,

my other sister got glasses and suddenly was class leader,

when I believed that my toes would fall off from the bitter cold,

my mother made a needlepoint.

24 inches high, 30 inches wide, 10 x 10 stitches for every inch –

a total of 72,000 stitches, with 12 colors.

Hunched over on the living room chair, daylight, lamp light,

eyes down – for the better part of that year.

If a stitch was missed, she’d say, Damn in her Irish accent,

remove the stitches back to the error and correct it.

The pattern was of four women – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter –

long gowns of seasonal colors, expressions confident, settled.

Background sun, trees, birds and lone fox were 60s geometric –

elongated legs, wings, 18 symmetrical sun rays.

Three of the figures looked toward the ground, busy in their roles –

while Winter looked away, far past the picture frame.