Paul Rowley

Paul Rowley holds an MFA in creative writing from Pacific University and has been weaving words and cedar since 2008. His work has made it to the permanent collections of the Peabody Essex Museum and the Autry Museum.  His cedar weaving reflects his Tlingit and Haida heritage, and he often incorporates other materials to highlight his Blackfeet and Cree roots as well.  He is also a writer and poet.

Fine Tight Rings

The weaver worked outside to see the chief arrive

and wondered, who might lie in the mud at low tide,

or would a copper be crushed by one of his wives

while stepping to dry land?

Weaving can go on so long that all I see are lines,

the lines in canoes, bloodlines, hats, and family songs.

The lines that hold color, the deep pools that won’t

bleed and spill over, into the rough troughs of confused

seas, or off the moss filled crags of this archipelago’s

rocky coastline, or the deep rough cuts in cedar poles.

I wonder, who wore the cuffs I wove, who broke the

cuffs I wove, and if they bore the young pretty ones

over there from that tribe that comes from so many

strands of split fibers.