For My *Thriends

My dearest ones, I want to tell you 
what I saw today just from looking outside 
at the sky: yes, it was grey, and a mist 
hovered about the window in shadows 
of condensation. And yes, a heavy fog 
had been gathering around my heart 
for so very, very long, coloring everything 
I saw in shades, even the smallest of things, 
but today, oh today felt a little like a miracle, 
because even though I could not see the sun, 
I could see the thin strands of treetops, 
still exposed and bare from winter’s straight edges, 
each of their reaching branches like individual threads, 
sewing themselves into the sky, and I recalled 

when I used to embroider by hand, my own threads 
always too thick inside the hoop, colors bold, unskilled, 
abrupt, fingertips sore from trying to force so much through 
that thin cloth all at once, and I thought at that moment
what talent it takes for any god to create something beautiful.
And maybe that is why we artists want to make things: 

not because we want to be gods, but because we have seen 
the hand of something almighty, and we know we are tracing 
alongside fingers that do everything by design, and perhaps 
that is why it is we, the creators, who feel so very close 
to the world, so very much closer to creatures with wings 
and spirits – because we are learning to become extensions 
of those incomparable places, where immense beauty has been 
in hiding within the plainest sight, just waiting to be discovered. 


Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, Copyright March 6, 2024, All Rights Reserved 

Dedicated to the poets, writers, creators and artists out there. You know who and how you are. 

*Thriends is a term used to describe a connection - a friend - on the social media platform Threads.