Rotund the oven stands, softly clattering machine,
to its self it could well be whispering,
What mass of matter you are, heart of the room!
Within your chambers you hold their dreams!
Which in a manner of speaking is true,
the students’ pottery exhibit is in a day (or two).
Metals brace its matter, grounddriven squat.
Inside it are plates, cups the size of fists, tureen.
Inside it an awkward coil vase, one’s first;
treasures of jars and jars—
for such is the capacity of this oven.
Seventy times seven.
The oven works on the wares, whistles
its workaday song— Would
that the master potter hear it! He does
but softly, a drone, a distant lackadaisical tune.
The oven’s power cord runs the length of the room
from the brace through its bottom to a seeming stand-offish wall.
Wall, what warrants such scoff—are you foe?
That I could unbolt myself from you! Ho, ho!
Plugged into but unperturbed
by the oven’s foolish unawares, the wall stands
distant. Thus continues the attachment.
(Which in a manner of speaking is true.)
Behind the wall is yet another room, the main studio.
