Each Thursday Warren and I turn to each other and ask how did time run out of the week. I try not to listen to the news because I run out of tears. While the dish towel may run out of the ability to dry another plate, I stop to ask where did the idea of a plate come from? Was the first plate a hand, a rock or a leaf? As potters these are the questions that keep us going back to find answers that don’t exhaust the questions.
A WELL RUNS OUT OF THIRST
A well runs out of thirst
the way time runs out of a week,
the way a country runs out of its alphabet
or a tree runs out of its height.
The way a brown pelican
runs out of anchovy-glitter at darkfall.
A strange collusion,
the way a year runs out of its days
but turns into another,
the way a cotton towel’s compact
with pot and plate seems to run out of dryness
but in a few minutes finds more.
A person comes into the kitchen
to dry the hands, the face,
to stand on the lip of a question.
Around the face, the hands,
behind the shoulders,
yeasts, mountains, mosses multiply answers.
There are questions that never run out of questions,
answers that don’t exhaust answer.
Take this question the person stands asking:
a gate rusting open.
Yes stands on its left, no on its right,
two big planets of unpainted silence.
–Jane Hirshfield, from The Beauty, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015