Waste Not, Want Not

Needle and thread, zippers,
hook-and-eyes, elastics, buttons, 
have become as scarce representing
replacements when garments wear
and tear as the garment owners' 
willingness to mend those items.
The quaint old method of 
repair-and-wear replaced by
the acceptance of obsolescence
through tear-and-discard. The effort
to apply the reasoning of thrift
and re-use vanished as a lost art
where time has collapsed as life
becomes too crowded with events
clamouring and demanding of
quotidian tasks of necessity 
taking root and of necessity of
the lack of will to attend to homely
skills now abandoned. For the young
see no point in repairing what
can be readily replaced as fashion 
demands and the elderly who once
darned, and crocheted, sewed and
knitted, suffer age compromised
eyesight and arthritic hands no
longer capable of deftly manipulating
needle and thread and fabric.