There is a land whose ancient lore
Tells of a lake, where hard by the shore
Grow flowers blue as a young girl’s eye.
Constant in vigil they circle nigh
A figure of stone, gray and hoary.
About that stone there is a story.

The eagle soars above the flock;
The moonlight yields to morn;
And needleworkers bowed beneath
The Lady Mordant’s scorn.

Acclaimed as Mistress of Needles by all
Who dwelt within the land,
She knew her rank, and by her skill
Obeisance she’d command.

One day her husband missed a fitting
Though she had demanded haste.
“Why I should have to suffer a man
Who hasn’t a shred of taste . . .”

“What’s that?”  He spun to face her full,
And his words were hard and dry.
“Oh, I know fine work well enough
When it comes before my eye.”

“Compared to what I’ve seen today
Your best’s a pitiful thing;
A peasant girl who can catch in thread
The living breath of Spring.”

With a snort of contempt he passed her by,
Leaving her rage to grow
‘Til he left on a hunt, and “Fetch me,” she spat,
“That girl from the village below!”

*   *   *   *   *

Aglow with the dawn of womanhood
The girl was sweet to see.
‘Too pretty by half,’ the Lady thought
‘But that won’t help her with me.’

As a knight his gauntlet she threw down a scarf.
“I want this embroidered by morn.
If it’s not fit for a royal court
You’ll wish you’d never been born.”

After locking the door the Lady smiled –
Thin and bare of thread
That rag wasn’t fit for the girl herself! –
She chuckled her way to bed.

The day was young when she flew through the door.
The light in the tower was clear.
“Haven’t you finished by now?” she snapped.
“Yes’m, I have it here.”

It had been done, and more than done.
The Lady shook to her knees.
The scarf was a marvel: linen imbued
With the soul of a summer breeze.

She choked on awe and a bile of shame –
All her boasts . . . she’d been so vain! –
And then from the girl: “Forgive me Ma’am,
I know it’s terribly plain . . .”

*   *   *   *   *

She searched from dusk and into despair
To find the secret stitch.
It had to be there! Beneath? Between?
She couldn’t even tell which.

But a plan she formed, to tame the girl
With a bodice, tattered and stained:
“If this isn’t fit for my daughter by dawn
You’ll never hold needle again.”

To sew a bodice was weeks of work,
Far more than a scarf or blouse,
And her spineless chick in purple and green?
As soon to feather a mouse!

But dawn’s first light saw the bodice transformed
To a rich autumnal wine
That held a bounty of harvest bread
With nuts and fruits entwined.

And worse than that her little mouse,
As a rose that’s fed by rain,
Was also transformed: to a Woman grown,
Ripe as the fields of grain.

The Lady quailed and fled the room.
Her vision fluttered and dimmed.
But within the hour she staggered back
With a mighty reel of trim.

As broad across as her arm was long,
With seven maids at her side
The Lady had hoped to fill its length
While Winter hemmed them inside.

“I want this filled with finer work
Than any you’ve sewn before.
If it’s not done by tomorrow morn . . .”
She turned and said no more.

*   *   *   *   *

That night the Lady couldn’t sleep,
Pursued by an awful dread
That she sat alone while magic was sewn
In the realms beyond her head.

But all too soon the clouds blushed red
And the sun began to grow.
What fate had been spun in the heights above?
She simply had to know.

She edged the door open, then froze where she stood.
The girl was up on a chair,
Striking a pose like one on stage,
The ribbon looped by her hair.

“I see your plan.  Whatever I do
You'll think of something worse.
But I promise you this: If you steal my life
Then with it you'll take my curse.

“You'll never match a piece of mine
Whilst sun and stone abide:
Nor ever forget that I could soar
On wings you were denied!”

The Lady charged across the room
“How dare you speak to me so!”
She wrenched the girl from her careful pose
And raised her hand for a blow.

But whether it happened by fate or intent,
The chair was knocked away.
The girl toppled sideways – the noose went Snap! –
And her body began to sway.

A drop rolled slowly out her nose
And crawled down over her cheek,
Until the ribbon about her neck
Was kissed with a crimson streak.

The Lady stirred as from a trance
As the sun filled the room with light.
She drew a knife then stopped for the trim
Wasn’t a simple white.

Stitches like snow on mountain peaks;
Silver like frost-kissed dew;
But stained . . . and thus in the maiden’s blood
She saw the hidden clue.

With ribbon in hand she raced to her bower
And bolted herself inside.
‘Match you?’ she thought, ‘I’ll do better than that!
And this will be my guide!’

*   *   *   *   *

They let it out the Lady was ill.
But in truth she slaved at the trim,
Hunched with needle in talon hand
Like a crow in a shriveled skin.

For months it was thus, ‘til the weather warmed
And the ice gave way to sun.
Then Lord Mordant ventured to see his wife . . .
And marveled at what she’d done.

The reel of ribbon was all but empty;
The work a winter scene
Sewn in silvers, whites, and grays –
Bright and cold and clean.

“Come” he told her, “You know that work
Goes fastest out of doors.”
And thus Lady Mordant, with needle and thread,
Went to sit by the shore.

Her needle flashed liked humming wings
And the ribbon melted away
Until she came to the final stitch,
Where she stopped and began to sway.

“It won’t let me finish!” She twisted and fought
As one pinned in a ghostly grasp.
Then she gave a triumphant cry –
And froze with a strangled gasp.

And from that day Lady Mordant has sat
With needle twixt finger and thumb,
A crouching specter of granite, poised
For a stitch that will never come.

There is a land whose ancient lore
Tells of a lake, where hard by the shore
Grow flowers blue as a young girl’s eye.
Constant in vigil they circle nigh
A figure of stone, gray and hoary.
About that stone there is a story.