Trina Robson รีทวีตแล้ว
A Tribute to John McKnight (1931-2024)
*The Weaver of Weavers*
Four score and thirteen years
Of weaving,
The forest loom lumbers,
Snugly around small
Bounded places.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
A circle of friends around the world,
Hold gently a silk thread,
Hosting unseen connections,
A paper boy in rural Ohio,
Through to an Adobe in Cuernavaca,
Where a prophet foretold the limits of Kings’ horses and men.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
Do not for others what they can do for themselves,
America, burning again,
new dreams emerging, again,
As the Blue Planet, unfinished, gasps:
“I can’t breathe”,
and
Is revealed.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
The weaver too was weaved,
From the Great Depression,
Korea and Selma,
From Bobby to George,
The Moon landing and the fall of the Berlin Wall,
He cheered as a former student proclaimed “Yes We Can!”
He’s lived through a Plague and traveled the world.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
He paid attention, always curious,
About the edges, the forest’s fringe,
Where strangers are sent, and labels afixed.
Where carelessness comes home to roost and where surprises also,
Spring.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
He was courageous
and fiercely kind,
Forever featuring the handmade and homespun,
Backgrounding Caesar;
While foregrounding his neighbor.
With Covenanter’s resolve and Irish wit,
He made the invisible power that surrounds us, visible,
And vibrant, and beautiful.
Life shaped him and he shaped life.
He was a weaver of weavers,
Neighborhoods; his precious loom.
Life’s functions the threads,
And the tapestry he helped us see,
Is a cultural womb; for the birthing
Of the beloved Community.
Life shaped him and he shaped us all
for the better! We. Will Weave onwards.
Goodbye dear friend, rest well.
Cormac
(In loving memory of John L. McKnight, 1931-2024, November 02)
English
