Aunt Mattie bent a thousand times down the long black rows
Then battled with
the angry weeds so little seeds could grow
Come summer Mattie pulled the snow
from cruel and cutting bolls
She was patient pale and slender and was only
eight years old
Round 'n round the spinning wheel beneath Aunt Mattie's
boot
She recalled the soil and cotton seeds and summer's hopeful
shoots
Two winters spun out summer's threads in rich and creamy folds
And
she had a bolt of cotton cloth when she turned ten years old
If we bend
and plant the seeds and tame the wicked weeds
If we let the sun and rain
assist and simplify our needs
If we follow in the barefoot path of one
persistent girl
We'll throw a healing quilt across an ever ailing
world
Indigo and lavender made up Aunt Mattie's sky
Remembering her
childhood days she made the rustic dye
The hour before the day would end it
fed young Mattie's dream
She made indigo and lavender when she turned just
fourteen
If we bend and plant the seeds and tame the wicked weeds
If
we let the sun and rain assist and simplify our needs
If we follow in the
barefoot path of one persistent girl
We'll throw a healing quilt across an
ever ailing world
Aunt Mattie bends a thousand times down each patchwork
row
Piece by piece and stitch by stitch in fading candle glow
The valley
of the shadow cannot call her from her seams
Until finishing her lifetime's
work she dies at seventeen
If we bend and plant the seeds and tame the
wicked weeds
If we let the sun and rain assist and simplify our needs
If
we follow in the barefoot path of one persistent girl
We'll throw a healing
quilt across an ever ailing world