Oxblood Cogitations

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  

On Machines

The essence of silk manufacturing 

is continuity, the continuity of 

the single thread 

wound first by the silk worm and 

finessed by seasoned fingers 

touching and following 

the fiber, unwinding 

and washing without breaking 

conscious attention, 

wound and unwound and 

wound again and 

on to where jiggered spinners jitter and 

silken thread flows

from swift to swift 

and bobbin to bobbin, 

and the most common task described

by the women managing twenty machines at a shift: 

Catch the broken thread, and tie it properly, 

and be sure the dye lot matches. 

Continuity is everything,

hum of continuousness.