“Hum of Creation”
from Remedios
Varo's painting “Embroidering the Earth's Mantle"
While a tempest brews outside,
rumbling, and shudders;
Inside, nimble fingers bob, weave and flutter.
Light filters gray through slit windows
of secreted stone tower;
Swish of sleeves and whir of looms
provide ambience every hour.
I look up from my looming work
at my golden-haired siblings;
Though we look alike,
as youngest I jam the yarn-strings.
To keep rhythm with the others
I sing softly as I work
to the monk’s hymn-like incantations
that in my ears do lurk.
For my sisters and I create this mantle
that spills down o’er the world
but the Chanter’s tones infuse the Life Force
into the fabric so artfully twirled.
Though I am the novice,
our work flows steadily on;
It is our trade to provide the ground
that earthly beings shall tread upon.
And though I would not exchange our lots—
those fragile mortals with me—
I do often wonder on
the varied lives they'll lead.
But I will never know them
for when our creative work is done,
we will rest up in the heavens
as starry Sisters, Seven in Constellation.
But work and wait – that eternal fate
for us has not yet come—
and I smile to hear these golden maidens
join me in my hum.
--Ellen H.
*Notes: It was my idea to connect this painting with the seven Pleiades (Seven Sisters constellation); not the painter's (that we know of). Different ancient mythologies say they were the daughters of Atlas or Zeus, set in the sky as stars for burial or to protect them from a pursuer. “The loss of one of the sisters, Merope, in some myths may reflect an astronomical event wherein
one of the stars in the Pleiades star cluster disappeared from view by the naked eye.”
And, of another painting of the Pleiades sisters: “Interestingly it shows each connected with their corresponding star by
a thread, here perhaps representing the process by which they were turned into
stars."
