The following 144 words are strewn to a Prosery prompt by Lisa at dVerse Poets’ Pub. They follow a friend’s observation of her local Kingfisher darting in flight along the River Cam in Cambridge, UK.

We are encouraged to share in response to the line Everything I do is stitched with its color, from the works of W. S. Merwin (1927-2019).

(Naughtily I slipped an extra letter – can u spot it? – into his American color, as I was born of English parents.)

‘Everything I do is stitched with its colour’, sang the appliqued Kingfisher, whirring from Riverside to the wisp-legged willows by the boathouse that Ben designed.

Saw then the brilliance of the Tuesday flight, sending turquoi-marine grace to Mary’s reflection at online dancing; lending chestnut-tint radiance to animism; lending blood-memoir and memowrite to Di and Andrew, Sheila, Gwyneth, Sherran, Janet and me.

I cast my line back – a fishing rod into the Covid waters – and remembered each of my dancing friends, including the ones I’d lost – Shirley, Lee, Richard, Felicity. Thought of Judy and of Chris, weaving colour into family and fragile feistiness.

And mostly recalled Sara, stitching love into the myth of madness, and Techni-colouring again that New Year we had penned in writing classes 2018, back when I was deep into the lapis lazuli of Tutenkamen, the frailty of faces.

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 17 January 2023