A circle of ladies sit wearing fluffy ponchos and knitting woollen blankets. The bundles of fabric heap at their feet, blending into a homogeneous mass. Are the five ladies knitting five blankets, or are they each knitting one corner of the same five-cornered blanket? It’s hard to tell.
The air was so clear yesterday that the ladies’ bluish-green ponchos appeared greenish-blue. The ladies often wonder who decides what is blue and what is green as they sit in silence knitting. It doesn’t matter what colour they use as long as they knit with beauty and purpose. Why do brown eggs turn white, and why does white bread turn brown? When does a journey change from “so far from the start” to “so far till the end?”
The ladies have knitted for so long that there is no need to speak. Everything that needs saying has been said. The company of one another is enough to keep them happy. They muse and they knit.
Each time their legs are bared, they begin a new blanket. It’s always a shade of green, and it takes them many years.
The blue mist is thick today. Looking to the valley you can see that the fire that last bared the Five-Lady Mountains is only a distant memory. They’ve already knitted a lush blanket of trees to cover their legs and they’ll continue long after we’re gone.
T.
Tandi Tales 