Post by bluemaydie on May 6, 2008 15:09:54 GMT -5
The following is meant to be a going-away present for a good friend who's moving out of state. SO I'd like it to be, you know, passable before I give it to her. Any help woul be appreciated.
Bluemaydie
The Potter's Studio
—for Mandy
Great vases stare down from the highest shelves;
clay sculptures clog the corners of the floor.
How many potters work here? Only one?
Just one produced this disarray of tastes?
The pitchers on the table, are they hers?
And these, the crazy-canted teapots, hers?
This elegance of line, this broken spiral,
a spare form here, and there a hulking statue—
all these are hers and only hers? How so?
One heart produced them, one the mind that dreamed
each form, one pair of hands worked form in clay.
There sits the wheel where she has sat and leaned
her strength into resistant mud, that spun
into submission it would grace acquire.
(Oh, God-like strength! Oh, mortal mud! Oh, trite
and overworn comparison!) There stands
the table where she's taken slabs and built
and built and built the clay up into trees
and boulders, river-beds, forms mountainous.
(I dare not more than whisper here
that there was once another potter, one
who made both rocks and trees.) And there
against the wall are shelves and shelves of bits:
a set of bowls, like chicks around a hen,
broods underneath the rim of a tureen;
a family of rocks in hollow clay
are jagged hedgehogs rooting in the dirt;
a hodge and podge of jars, lids on and off
and upside-down, some peak'd, some round, some squat,
some cookie-sized, some spice-, all gathered here—
pedestrians who wait to cross the street
have looked like that. The world is here in clay;
she made these earthen vessels, though not God.
(Not God! Of mud herself she works in mud,
and as before mud carries grace abroad.)
It staggers me.
Creation takes my breath and throws it out
for winds to catch and carry. I stand back
and shake my head. It's all too much, too much,
too grand. It's not for me. I can't hold mountains.
Nor hedgehogs, for that matter. Give me this:
From all your mud take up a little bit
and on your wheel give it familiar shape.
Not grandeur for this clay, but hand-fit warmth;
not rare sublimity, but daily rite.
Just ordinary mercy do I ask:
the shape and sweetness, comfort of the kiss
on hand and lip, and soft the rounded rim
of one well-crafted coffee cup.
Bluemaydie
The Potter's Studio
—for Mandy
Great vases stare down from the highest shelves;
clay sculptures clog the corners of the floor.
How many potters work here? Only one?
Just one produced this disarray of tastes?
The pitchers on the table, are they hers?
And these, the crazy-canted teapots, hers?
This elegance of line, this broken spiral,
a spare form here, and there a hulking statue—
all these are hers and only hers? How so?
One heart produced them, one the mind that dreamed
each form, one pair of hands worked form in clay.
There sits the wheel where she has sat and leaned
her strength into resistant mud, that spun
into submission it would grace acquire.
(Oh, God-like strength! Oh, mortal mud! Oh, trite
and overworn comparison!) There stands
the table where she's taken slabs and built
and built and built the clay up into trees
and boulders, river-beds, forms mountainous.
(I dare not more than whisper here
that there was once another potter, one
who made both rocks and trees.) And there
against the wall are shelves and shelves of bits:
a set of bowls, like chicks around a hen,
broods underneath the rim of a tureen;
a family of rocks in hollow clay
are jagged hedgehogs rooting in the dirt;
a hodge and podge of jars, lids on and off
and upside-down, some peak'd, some round, some squat,
some cookie-sized, some spice-, all gathered here—
pedestrians who wait to cross the street
have looked like that. The world is here in clay;
she made these earthen vessels, though not God.
(Not God! Of mud herself she works in mud,
and as before mud carries grace abroad.)
It staggers me.
Creation takes my breath and throws it out
for winds to catch and carry. I stand back
and shake my head. It's all too much, too much,
too grand. It's not for me. I can't hold mountains.
Nor hedgehogs, for that matter. Give me this:
From all your mud take up a little bit
and on your wheel give it familiar shape.
Not grandeur for this clay, but hand-fit warmth;
not rare sublimity, but daily rite.
Just ordinary mercy do I ask:
the shape and sweetness, comfort of the kiss
on hand and lip, and soft the rounded rim
of one well-crafted coffee cup.