Ceramic

Ceramic

 

I slip behind her into the future; memory.

 

A bat swoops, the lake a silence of dark light;

how it will be, must be.

         

                   Carol Ann Duffy

                   Orta St Giulio

 

It’s true absolutely I watch all

Their movements as if they were

Porcelain, the finest ceramic

A king’s-worthy glaze surviving

 

The fire ungauged but by the wave

Of a hand over the flame.  How

Some make it unscathed, how

The sound of those that cant

 

Resist the furnace break

Though we cannot know what those

Are until its as cool as a memory,

The kiln door open, the heat

 

Released and we reach in to feel

For what we’ve made, what’s lost

In parts on the floor, in parts

On the shelf, a self in tesserae

 

Maybe, the simple shard

Of glazed clay waiting; amazed

The single piece that made

It through to the end was the crust 

 

End discarded as whimsy, simple

Lengths of a little girl’s fingers

Pressed together the way kids press

Thumbs meeting up-

 

Side down, finger knuckles joined

A handsome heart gleaming

The exact blue they needed

While each were cleaning

 

The pieces from the wheel

And making them pinch & here,

This too! Before the door closed &

The heat rose.  Here, Mama, this

 

Too.