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Black
Bowl Dreaming
The poem, "Black Bowl Dreaming" by Leila Philip, is a centerpiece
in the book. It is the result of Philip having been a student of Toshiko's at
Princeton, and a writer who spent time in Japan. Because of that, she was also
persuaded to do a serious treatise/memoir of Toshiko
Takaezu, that should be
published before too long. With some luck, our two books will be
complementary.
Black Bowl Dreaming
by Leila Philip
Black bowl dreaming
time without resistance, fire
and the steady pull of hands
earth’s memory released
digging down, toward stillness
toward form.
“Black bowl dreaming, midnight disk
negative moon, that eyeless eye
speak, I will find the words
I will tell you what you are.”
There is no tragedy in my work
the potter said, only moments
of dreaming, criss-crossed like
timbers in a barn.
there in the garden she
was working, beans uprooted
seedpods lifting, a broken hoe
loose amidst the green fire
of weeds and spirits
rusted junk.
“But of Hale Akala, house of sun
where the lava flows and speaks,
and of the years, steadily pressing
like heartbeats, my heart beating
and yours? Not chicken baked in clay,
but the tread of flowers silvered
with rain, and the way you once
told me, go dance with the lettuce,
dancing? yes, in the rain.”
By now the crowds had gathered, setting
up deck chairs on the lawn. The potter
watched them assemble
webs of tenderness spread
between her fingers, she felt
their nervous hearts
and the pull of continents her own
seady de-evolution. They were
the bean vines in her garden
green angels curling
and twisting up the pole
toward beauty, toward terror
toward the sun.
When she pressed the black bowl to her lips
ten thousand stars burst
behind her eyes, the black bowl
flew from her fingers
an ebony swan
crossed the ocean
landed there.
This was never the story of a potter’s work
a life spent knowing
through the hands, this
is the story of
a black bowl, dreaming
itself to life
tender as
a new bud
tough as corn.
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