Selvage

I came in from the woods

with the smell of cedar thick

in the wool of my sweater, 

and you said, where have you been.

I said I picked the selvage

off the floor where I'd forgotten it.

When, caught in the song 

of some grand end I'd thrown, 

careless and irreverent, the excess away.

Forgetting, perhaps, the miracle 

to be found in what is left over

in what is too often sacrificed.

The bits and pieces that collectively 

offer life. 

So when you handed me that quilt

like a stained glass benediction

of second chances and forgiveness

I put down my work

I pulled on my sweater

I headed for the trees.

There is nothing more perfect 

than the broken shards of sunlight

a piercing reminder of remainders

of everything in this world that can yet be

salvaged.