Alex Conall, social justice bard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexconall) wrote2013-05-18 11:56 am
alexconall) wrote2013-05-18 11:56 am
A Spell of Smoke and Notions
It cost money she did not have to buy
flax and cotton fiber, or seeds to fly
where they might grow into plants needing more
tending than she could afford. So she tore
the wind into strips and wove them into
a net, and burned twigs she found fallen, strewn
over forest ground. The white smoke she caught in
the net, and she reached into the net and
spun its contents into fine soft pale thread.
The spindle'd belonged to her mother, now dead,
who had taught her daughter its making and use.
Its magic meant the smoke daren't diffuse.
She took the bobbins and brought them to the room
where she had set up her father's great loom.
More magic set the shuttle to flying through
the warp threads like lightning—she would pay, she knew,
with days doing nothing but sleeping and
eating, but that, given what she had planned—
She soon cut the cloth free of the loom frame,
and cut it to fit the woman with her name.
She sewed it with more of the smoke-spun thread,
stopped for a moment to eat cheese and bread,
and polish the buttons she'd carved from a log
she'd found fallen one day out in the fog.
The satin-weave cloth seemed almost to shine.
Her own daughter'd wear this gown to entwine
her life with that of her lover's, and she
would be wearing the finest gown ever seen
by the young woman's family—they did
not approve of their daughter's choice, and bid
her find a suitable mate. Well, there'd be,
as there always was, more difficulty
in trying to part them, and she was bound
to give her child the best dress could be found
or made, and she hoped it'd be taken to
be highest quality, too rare for you
to find in the shops, not something only
a poor mage could do. Making demand, she
hoped would occur, people to buy spun smoke—
drum up business, so she wouldn't be broke.
A Spell of Smoke and Notions by Elizabeth Conall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
flax and cotton fiber, or seeds to fly
where they might grow into plants needing more
tending than she could afford. So she tore
the wind into strips and wove them into
a net, and burned twigs she found fallen, strewn
over forest ground. The white smoke she caught in
the net, and she reached into the net and
spun its contents into fine soft pale thread.
The spindle'd belonged to her mother, now dead,
who had taught her daughter its making and use.
Its magic meant the smoke daren't diffuse.
She took the bobbins and brought them to the room
where she had set up her father's great loom.
More magic set the shuttle to flying through
the warp threads like lightning—she would pay, she knew,
with days doing nothing but sleeping and
eating, but that, given what she had planned—
She soon cut the cloth free of the loom frame,
and cut it to fit the woman with her name.
She sewed it with more of the smoke-spun thread,
stopped for a moment to eat cheese and bread,
and polish the buttons she'd carved from a log
she'd found fallen one day out in the fog.
The satin-weave cloth seemed almost to shine.
Her own daughter'd wear this gown to entwine
her life with that of her lover's, and she
would be wearing the finest gown ever seen
by the young woman's family—they did
not approve of their daughter's choice, and bid
her find a suitable mate. Well, there'd be,
as there always was, more difficulty
in trying to part them, and she was bound
to give her child the best dress could be found
or made, and she hoped it'd be taken to
be highest quality, too rare for you
to find in the shops, not something only
a poor mage could do. Making demand, she
hoped would occur, people to buy spun smoke—
drum up business, so she wouldn't be broke.
A Spell of Smoke and Notions by Elizabeth Conall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.