Clad in polka dots,

Eyes glitter despite wet toes,

Exchanging this love.

After days of rain, the sunlight

shimmers – dappled shadows dance.

Living tradition,

Colors bleed transformation,

An elsewhere awaits.

What do our bodies know that

text cannot articulate?

Shuttling asleep,

Lines collapse past and future.

Who holds the power?

Resisting capture, its wings

flutter, fighting off the pin.

Knowledge is a myth.

Opacity turns liquid

When bamboo meets cloth.

Look through, not inside. See with,

be beside, to speak nearby.

The standardizing

of agitation controls

what’s felted, not felt. 

Obsolete occupations,

yet their legacy lingers.

Renga is a Japanese poetic form written by collaborators. The first poet writes a haiku (consisting of 5-7-5 syllables), and the second poet follows with a couplet (consisting of 7-7 syllables), and the renga would be composed of these linked alternating stanzas. Here, the haikus were written while I was in Leiden throughout the course of ISGS. Each haiku distills some of my thoughts concerning the day. There are five for each day of programming. When I returned to New York, with the transnational relationships of textiles and dyes still on my mind, I drafted the couplets.