NaPoWriMo 2025, day 3: The Potter’s Progress

Note: The prompt offered on the NaPoWriMo website invited poets to explain obliquely why they are poets and not something else. But I AM something else, so let’s see what happens when I start with that.

The Potter’s Progress

Clay speaks to me tactilely/And telepathically

I need form/I need life

Clay chides me here and there

I deserve better/I do not deserve slapdash

Clay on the wheel connects me/With the Spin with which Creation began

That hum you hear is Universal

Clay has her delights and cruelties/And sometimes a will of her own

Stop trying to make a bowl. I do not want to be a bowl. Make me into a bird with four eggs on my back.

Sometimes cleanup is messy./Beware her dust!

Clay urges me to improve./I asked her why she was so demanding.

You know it is not I who demands. It is you yourself.

I am however thrilled that you do so.

It’s good for both of us, Darling.