Poem: "The Colors in His Tapestries"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the March 20, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from curiosity. It also fills the "wise" square in my 1/31/18 You Are card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with ng_moonmoth, fuzzyred, and mama_kestrel. It belongs to the Yellow Unicorns series.


"The Colors in His Tapestries"


The wise saint in the cave
is a favorite of the unicorns.

They amble up his hill
to graze on the wildflowers
while he watches, smiling.

They scratch their itches
on the blackberry bushes
that grow around the cave.

When the unicorns have gone,
the saint gathers tufts of yellow hair
and spins them into rarefied yarn.

He makes tapestries of holy scenes
and weaves the yellow yarn
to make halos for holy figures
and, of course, unicorns.

People pester him with questions,
wanting to know how he got
the colors in his tapestries.
They think it's some kind of dye.

He doesn't tell them otherwise.

Comments

[mama_kestrel]

So the unicorn's hair is visible once it's off the unicorn - and glows. Fascinating.

[scrubjayspeaks]

Lovely. For people who cannot see unicorns, does the yarn appear transparent? Or is it visible in some color just a step to the side of the invisible yellow range in that universe?

[corvi]

Reminds me of Father Paul Camboué, who invented a machine to collect silk from spiders, and made a set of bed hangings from the yellow silk of the Golden Silk Orb Weaver!

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is a good match. :D