Cinco de Mayo

In celebration of the holiday, and before I hoist myself out of this chair and head off to the gym, I offer this poem, which I wrote in Mexico, in the shadow of a pyramid.

Woman's Work

"I am a potter's potter,"
she smiled,
"or so I have been told."
Her eyes
remembered the green
of summer leaves
while the bowl she proffered
gleamed
tangerine in pale
autumnal light
cool in my hands,
and beautiful
And she was small
her practical hands
dry stained grey
as weathered stone
of churches where
sacerdotal alchemy plays out
in silence
and the swing of censers
in the offering of beads
and the ringing
voices of children
and the high singing of bells
She carried possibility
and cured it
in a kiln
that she built herself,
brick by brick.
She smiled again through
tired lashes, leaf-brown hair:

"We do what we have to do."

Palenque, February 13, 2009

©Sandra Leigh 2009