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Consolation for Tamar
on
the occasion of her breaking
an
ancient pot
You
know I am no archeologist, Tamar,
And
that to me it is all one dust or another.
Still,
it must mean something to survive the weather
Of
the Ages—earthquake, flood, and war—
Only
to shatter in your very hands.
Perhaps
it was gravity, or maybe fated—
Although
I wonder if it had not waited
Those
years in drawers, aeons in distant lands,
And
in your fingers' music, just a little
Was
emboldened by your blood, and so forgot
That
it was not a rosebud, but a pot,
And,
trying to unfold for you, was brittle.
Alicia
E. Stallings
© Alicia E. Stallings. From Archaic Smile,
University
of
Evansville Press; originally printed in The
Classical
Outlook;
reprinted
by permission of the author.
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