The potter's wheel

There is poetry in pottery
and verses in a vase:
the potter at a wailing wheel
declaims it at the kiln.
Art is the genie of discovery –
a mere safari Marco Polo…

Beethoven saw vibrations
of every crotchet, quaver,
sharp and flat, dot rest and clef
to be the stuff of manuscript
on which to scribble
nine symphonies… et al.

Michelangelo, at random,
chose a block of marble
from Fantiscritti in Carrara
knowing that within lay David
hibernating, waiting a thaw
and the springtime of a chisel.

Shakespeare shuffled alphabets,
a croupier fanning cards,
aware that deep ensconced
there lurked the embryonic
Shylock, a quality of mercy,
a flesh-pound, pricked to bleed.

From the tapestry of sunflower,
grey lavender, the pageant sky
and muscle of a mountain stream,
van Gogh hammered pixels
into that tormented visage –
his own – graved on eternity.

Potter! Look to your clay:
knead; stretch; and throw!
The wheel is turning; and yours
it is to extricate the pot
that you surely there imagined.
To kiln with it! And bake!

So art has manifested
all we know of immortality –
that minute corner of the universe
we dare to call our own.