The silence hardens on a face,
Dogged discipline firms the leaning pose,
Drawing full-length now the cue as bow,
Tuning out pressures of a bipartite race.

I saw a bird in obsidian cloak,
Make ripples and a flaring splash,
Knee deep in mirrors on the muddy grass,
Playing free to dust and clean itself,
To shed away all filthy things,

Now skyward march the bouncing rays,
Up with the swooping droplets lest they fall,
On rippled clouds and sky below,
Off now the bird unshackled from the dust,
To leave the mirrors by the swaying grass.

A dull thud resounds as the clay is thrown,
And round it spins,
Wobbling up and down into a centred slab,
And stretching up and round,
And round and in,
Till proud pottery pirouettes on petrifying pans,
Off to the kiln to toughen it up.