like monks walking for peace

the practiced quilter
uses her thimble to rock
her threaded needle
down through all layers
and back up again,
hand-stitching for peace
down through all layers
and back up again,
again, and again,
loads many tiny stitches
at once, pulls all plies
together. better
than a rocking chair,
this zen rocking stitch.

—dotty seiter

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We Walk Together
12 x 12″; fabric, thread, and marker
a square created by Phyllis Follett and Dotty Seiter
for a collaborative This Is What Democracy Looks Like quilt
2026

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Notes about poem and art:
• “like monks walking” celebrates a traditional hand-quilting stitch that my long-time friend Pat taught me, a lasting gift in my life, one I hadn’t practiced for a few years until it came back into play a few weeks ago. I set out to speak my truth in a 17-syllable traditional haiku here, but finally settled on a modified wannabe haiku of 14 lines (a hybrid of haiku and sonnet hahaha???), each of which contains either the traditional 5- or 7-syllable haiku line length.
• In January I discovered a collaborative quilt-for-democracy project led by women in California, and I knew I had to be a part of it. I tapped my friend Phyllis, an accomplished pictorial quilter, and we collaborated on a square. She did all the conceptual work, design, fabric selection, and assembling (her passions), and I did the hand-stitched quilting (my delight and balm), and we’re both very pleased with We Walk Together.