Clay

Clay

Forged of densest matter,

body of earth.

Meticulous care to navigate the form making,

we precipitate the limitations of material,

element, time and space.

In patient tending we follow the way,

the ask of tenacious will 

and mindful purpose.

Attending at the threshold 

of the not yet manifest,

we come to embody the form.

The way is sometimes easeful 

and the making good.

Sometimes the way is hard.

Sometimes there is fruition.

Sometimes there is pain in the breaking,

the thing we cared for and laboured with,

not what we’d hoped it would become.

Sometimes things are made more beautiful 

in their brokenness, 

in their survival at such odds.

The gold in the cracks. 

But always we return,

our hands to the clay,

remembering ourselves as earth,

and fire,

and water,

and also air,

and the wild, untameable spirit of creation.

In creating vessel we make containment.

We form an empty space,

a receptive place,

a place to receive,

the harvest of nourishing food,

rejuvenating fluid.

Or the harvest of emptiness,

of stillness,

of waiting to be filled again.

The emptying and the filling. 

The beautiful, cyclic nature,

grappling with matter,

holding space for source.

Made of the earth, 

we become the vessel, 

clay, earth, body, 

source, vessel, harvest, 

loss, grief, joy, 

labour, rythmn, care,

contentment. 

The broken and the whole.

Beautiful.

Making the space,

the empty place,

inside the silent body 

and also through the hands into being,

that will nourish the world.

Text and Image Copyright Lucy Pierce 2020