Clay

I wrote this on July 8th of this year when, after seeing a neurologist, I knew my extreme light sensitivity could be due to a spinal fluid leak. I would have a spinal tap the following week:

"Since I've been sensitive to light recently, I've needed to keep my room dark as I lay in bed at times during the day. Yesterday it was raining and I thought about what St. John of the Cross must have felt, being held at one time in a cold cell in a castle for his beliefs. Difficulties make me want to write at times. I started this yesterday while staring at the darkness in bed:

Why, O’ Potter, dark do you keep

with once prized, now sharded crest,

an earthen cistern in the deep

of this tumultuous, strong tempest?

In the swirling, do vases fly,

as in an universal dance,

some wet and leaking, but some dry

flashing in woven appearance.

So cries a vessel made of clay,

in cracked and dripping form,

“What’s the reason, why this way?”

amidst a blinding, crashing storm.

Pot-maker breathes, “My clay, don’t weep,

I make you and I make the years,

Breathe with me from within the deep,

To transport peace not holding fears.”