One sister spun the bobbin bright, her song a river through the years,
She drew the thread from memory deep, from laughter, frost, and tears.
One sister clacked the patient loom, her shuttle marking law and time,
She wove the breadth of field and town, of mountain, river, and clime.
One sister raised the careful shears and trimmed the sprouting weft and warp,
She shaped the tufts of living cloth, the sky, the snow, the hearth, the carp.
The Dominion breathed through fur and wing, old spirits pacing every thread,
The moose, the beaver, geese in flight, the bears who roamed the shadowed bed.
Through winters’ silver, summers’ green, and autumn flaring copper fire,
The tapestry expanded full, a bursting, breathing, vibrant choir.
Yet Time brought new and heedless shades that scorned the roots of what had been,
They turned from horn and feathered past, nor honoured soil or kin.
They took the threads but wove no more, consumed the cloth with hungry hands,
Till eastern furnaces, black and fierce, burned through the tapestry’s lands.
The Moirae looked on in helpless grief as warp and weft began to strain,
Their grandest work in mortal hands threatened to fray and rend in vain.
Now must arise a sterner soul, a spirit guided, firm, and true,
To mend the loom, to guard the thread, lest autumn claim the whole anew.
(By John Shenton)