starting on Saint Patrick Day
for the Irish family

what if God tends to clay
atop a color wheel

smooths hard at first
in
dealing with the ground
of dust
then gestures artful and tender
giving shape
and then some drying and some glazing
even
through a fire

so tempered then
to set on Earth
for
beauty and for usefulness

beauty
in the spirit
and so inspired living

was
turned
tempered
having been crucibled
at
first
perhaps
against adulterations like those that somehow
infiltrated Eden
anyway

now
on an Earth of love
and also peril
sometimes one turned to the other
and
yet throughout the hope for
aging
maybe patina or to fall cracked
and thus required by
reconciliation
gold in the cracks in the Japanese
way
that shows the way

all a metaphor
except
the ground is real
so is God
so are we
so is the process that
repairs
and bears us home redeemed

c l couch


photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash