A Ceramic Sestina

        by Marc Pollitt

A solitary man before a wheel
builds dainty tea sets from the local clay;
with hands and eyes attuned to weight and form,
He's been acknowledged as a master potter.
The drying ware is painted with its glaze,
then placed within the kiln to suffer fire.

From what furnace comes his creative fire?
Will it be crushed beneath time's turning wheel?
Is man or woman artist merely glaze,
a crust on greater mankind's common clay?
And were we made by some celestial potter
who sought, in us, to imitate His form?

And are we now the masters of our form?
Can laboratories kindle Heaven's fire?
Is God or man creation's greatest potter?
And somewhere in the galaxy's pinwheel
do senile gods still trifle with cold clay
and coat their supplicants with genius glaze?

But if we changed the temper of that glaze
and with it, gave new shape and chosen form
to a rough beast we fashion from this clay,
will we consign our souls unto the fire?
And how can we be sure who turns the wheel,
or who is playing at the role of potter?

Indeed, we must beware lest a foul potter
contaminates the mixture of our glaze
or fashions monsters turned upon his wheel.
Though humankind is not defined by form,
still, with that form we learned to kindle fire,
and with its light crawled out of ancient clay.

Yet in the end all vessels are but clay,
and every thinking being is a potter.
No spark ignites that cannot turn to fire,
and wisdom is the substance of our glaze.
We had no choice to designate our form,
nor choose our place in Heaven's mighty wheel.

When common clay is dried, it's time to glaze.
The potter lights his kiln. He casts the form
into the fire, and restarts his wheel.

 

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©2001 by Marc Pollitt, all rights reserved