.
(with apologies to Charles Dickens)
.
Was Madame DeFarge
recording events
or was she creating reality
with the click-click
of her needles?
Yarn spun from infinity,
scarf stretched to eternity –
like you and me
in the worst of times
we knit and pearl them
into our best.
.
© 1999, 2016 Betty Hayes Albright
.
If memory serves me correctly (from high school!) Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities takes place during the French Revolution and begins, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”.
Madame DeFarge was an old woman who sat on the sidelines, always knitting and observing events. It was implied that she was somehow encoding history into her knitting – an idea I found intriguing.
Seasonings 
Wonderful poem again, Betty! Your ‘back catalogue’ seems immense and of unerring quality. Thank you for sharing and giving us some ‘culture’ 😉
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Thanks so much for your comment, David. Glad you liked the “culture”… 🙂
It’s been many decades since reading Tale of Two Cities, but I’ll never forget Madame DeFarge… always sitting there watching and knitting, watching and knitting… (I wonder, do students still read Dickens these days?)
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Betty, sadly I believe most students don’t ‘get it’, not in England anyway, and Dickens was English! Shakespeare suffered a similar fate years ago. I don’t believe it’s so much the time factor, as a tragic fall of standards. My mother and father left school at 14 and were better educated, were more knowledgable than kids leaving at 18 today. Thank you Betty!
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It truly is a sad state! I agree, students coming out of college these days can’t even write a coherent paragraph – and few have read any of the great classics. What a shame. We sometimes groaned about having to read those old works, but I’m so thankful they were required reading. Shakespeare, Dickens, et al, have stayed with me my whole life. Can’t imagine never having read them! (It’s hard to believe there are those unfamiliar with”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….” Alas!!
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Yes indeed, we have entered a ‘veritable dark age’ – so much for the Age of Aquarius! There is always hope, maybe change for the better will come sooner than we think, in the most unexpected ways? My very best wishes, David.
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Yes, I’m hoping this too, David. And I do believe it’ll be in “unexpected ways” – for most!
Best regards, from a kindred spirit,
Betty
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yes we do, don’t we. great poem again, Betty.
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Thanks, Francina! 🙂
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Oh…this gave me more reason to smile today…very delightful poem.
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Glad it made you smile, Charlie! 🙂
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Oh, I LIKE this, Betty!! I can’t knit to save my life, though. God bless you.
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Thanks, Caddo! 🙂
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Betty! This poem wove itself into my fingers as I spin the words that I love this poem. You have knit yourself together quite a tapestry of words, and with such precise economy that you did not waste a single stitch. Bravo!
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Peter, thank you so much! 🙂
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Yes, Betty, it is up to us to knit the worst moments into the best of times! Thank you for this clever poem to remind us!
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Glad you liked this, Granbee!
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Strong and succinct, Betty–an excellent poem! I can imagine Dickens smiling to himself as he wrote, wondering if your question would come up.
These lines are among my favorite:
‘Yarn spun from infinity,
scarf stretched to eternity -‘
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Thanks for such a nice comment, Bardess.
(Nice to think about – that Dickens would be smiling! 🙂 )
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“Your ‘back catalogue’ seems immense and of unerring quality.” I’ll go with that observation. 🙂
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Ben 😀 Thank you!
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Love it , no doubt Charles would too!
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Thank you, Willow – glad to see you back! 🙂
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What a wonderful comment on Dickens, Betty. We seem to be in a major Dickens revival right now, so this short poem helps to elucidate one of his masterpieces by taking a small character and endowing her with meanings that spin out as long as her thread and her scarf. Madame DeFarge, I’ve always figured, was inspired by the tale of the muses who spun out human fate on their looms. Poems that have echoes and echoes inside them are always powerful–but then you can write a haiku, and Ethel and I sit in our small computer room with amazed looks on our faces.
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Thomas, you always brighten my day with your comments – thank you.
Yes, this Dickens story is my favorite of his, though it’s been many decades since I read it in high school. I’ll never forget the beginning, the way it ended, and of course Madame DeFarge!
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