A potter sat and conjured shapes out of the earth
Like the ancients bent above theIr wheels gave ideas birth
To feel the clay move in his hands
A searching touch to understand
How life and art can merge
A poet sat and built a world inside his words
As real as stone but lightly in the air like birds
He sat inside his airy bower
In sunshine or in squally shower
In truth he found his worth
The kiln burned through the night
Colours melt and swim until it’s light
Then set hard in the air
To last like ancient footprints down the years
The lover sat and held his heart out to be shared
A quiet act of faith to stand there small and bare
Then love was like a startling fire
And they opened up like butterflies
And they shivered as they burned
A father walked the rolling hills with dogs and kids
Down to the creek around the dam in Sun or mist
The kids would grow and walk away
And wander on their own new way
Until they would return
The kiln burns through the night
Colours melt and swim until it’s light
Then set hard in the air
To last like ancient footprints down the years
A builder stood and saw the story in the stone
A rising hymn to each singing bird each aching bone
And always there the hills looked down
A whisper of a sacred sound
And something in him stirred
A teacher sits and draws the wide eyed learners in
To history rich with blood and love in which we swim
Along the current we all share
Into the heartfelt mysteries there
To journey is to learn
The kiln burns through the night
Colours melt and swim until it’s light
Then set hard in the air
To last like ancient footprints down the years
The searcher sits and contemplates the world unseen
Feels the light that fills us all move through our dreams
One final time he shuts his eye
And leaves us with our sadder lives
but we will not forget
Friends sit down around a table warm with life
The talk is rich with history and food and wine
Oh how I long to hear him sing
And tell his stories once again
And yarn into the night
The kiln burns through the night
Colours melt and swim until it’s light
Then set hard in the air
To last like ancient footprints down the years
The story teller sits and tells his rolling tales
Of history rich with blood and bone in hill and dale
I wish that I had known him then
And drank with him and called him friend
When we were young and free
Michael
Mullingar –
Galway – mixie – uni –
Germany – labouring
Sudan – caring
Australia – for love – for family
Eganstown – for breath – for family – kids in his care
They say that all wealth springs from
Pottery – of the earth – the ancient arts – poetry – patience and truth – with pots you can’t bluff – if they’re false they break – you must feel the clay as it forms – follow where it leads – like the ancient celts and athenians – striving for an art that will last – crafting a spark into a flame – difficult but true – kiln like the heart of a sun – lighting into life – baking an idea that can be held and that can feed – love in three dimensions
Gone too soon
So young so young
But then within those two shared hands
the world in their shared hands
In city smoke or country towns
The sun or rain come streaming down
Forever will he burn
That turn the pots that break the bread that knit the strands
As they must do
The sun smiles down upon us now
Like the ancients bent their clay to hold their wine and
in Eganstown
And even though the world spins round
bob's songs 