The Mill: A Winter Pastoral (15)
Yew Street Basement
Here is a still life: the wheel thrown pot
Amidst the grids and graphs and charts
Scales and rule, calendar and clock
On the steel top desk in the pulp-test station.
There is still life in the centered cup
That holds the instant coffee I must drink
To keep apace the thrumming frequency
Of the sprawled electric death machine I serve.
There is still life in the ceramic mug
The elemental spirit of the hands
That mold with Nature’s art the water’s flow
The glaze of fire, the earthly body’s clay.
Still life
Soft frozen
In stone
With thumb
I feel.
4-12 shift