{"id":681,"date":"2022-12-10T21:13:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T02:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/?p=681"},"modified":"2022-12-10T21:13:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T02:13:13","slug":"decembrance-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/2022\/12\/10\/decembrance-10\/","title":{"rendered":"decembrance #10"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year ago today we celebrated the life of Mikio Shinagawa. About ten years ago Mikio, Warren and I put together an exhibit of plates to commemorate our friendship and the many years of making pottery for Omen Azen in New York City. Mikio pushed Warren and I to give poetic names to our work. He wanted us to think of them relative to resonances, perhaps thunderstorms or ice, rather than being solely descriptive about the materials and process used. He wanted us to think of our pots like constellations–allusions with stories. Mikio’s most fervent wish for himself and others was to think of providing for the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dead Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out here, there\u2019s a bowing even the trees are doing.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winter\u2019s icy hand at the back of all of us.
Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feels
so mute it\u2019s almost in another year.

I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying.

We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the trash, the rolling containers a song of suburban thunder.

It\u2019s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 recycling bin until you say, Man, we should really learn
some new constellations<\/em>.

And it\u2019s true. We keep forgetting about Antlia, Centaurus,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But mostly we\u2019re forgetting we\u2019re dead stars too, my mouth is full
       of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what\u2019s larger within us, toward how we were born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look, we are not unspectacular things.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve come this far, survived this much. What<\/p>\n\n\n\n

would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No<\/em>.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No<\/em>, to the rising tides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for the safety of others, for earth,
                 if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if we launched our demands into the sky, made ourselves so big
people could point to us with the arrows they make in their minds,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rolling their trash bins out, after all of this is over?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


–Ada Lim\u00f3n, From The Carrying<\/em> (Milkweed Editions, 2018)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago today we celebrated the life of Mikio Shinagawa. About ten years ago Mikio, Warren and I put together an exhibit of plates to commemorate our friendship and the many years of making pottery for Omen Azen in New York City. Mikio pushed Warren and I to give poetic names to our work. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rough-ideas","tag-decembrance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}