covered with years debris and duff,
the tump and pitch of the shovel changed songs
as I delved deeper into rocks and loam.
Green chert and jasper emerged, obsidian flakes.
I dug past the debris, old paint rollers, beer cans,
shredded plastic, onto an age of opalized bottles.
Then, deeper into the dark jumbled ivy roots,
an artifact from my halcyon days at College of Marin.
My sculpture of Fat Kate on her throne,
emerged from tangled slumber, a relic of the past,
when love was young & all things were possible.
Then, a Greek kylix, a jughandled goblet
glazed with cobalt and rutile, a wine-dark ocean
streaked with sea foam and silvered feathers,
oxidized iron green swaths across a borate bowl.
Thano always told us to destroy our flawed darlings.
But we were young and thought we knew better.
The coarse clay that we mixed in the pugmill
was gritted with pulverized pots, our failures,
recycled to give strength and courage to new pots.
What survived were not the masterpieces,
but those failed vessels, the rejects we threw back.
The handle and spout held onto the flawed teapot,
50 years underground. Hardpan packed into the belly
insulated against the atrocities of weather and ice.
It was like an archaeological dig excavating the past
as I dug deeper, uncovering treasure after treasure,
raku pots shards that once glistened in metallic hues,
now mottled with age from the acid soil that leached
bright copper carapaces into celadon streaks.
Only an oxblood pinchpot held its rubied stance
against the rough markers of time.
I dug down deeper until I found the old coins,
quarters and pennies from 1929 and 1937.
Terminus post quem. Until I could go no further.
When our family moved here to this land,
how much was a penny worth then,
and what were their dreams made of?
8/3 Write On! Terri Glass
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