Richard Aerni on wed 4 sep 96
The Firing
for Les Blakebrough and the memory of John Chappell
by Gary Snyder
Bitter blue fingers
Winter nineteen sixty-three A.D.
showa thirty-eight
Over a low pine-covered splay of hills in Shiga
West-south-west of the outlet of Lake Biwa
Domura village set on sandy fans of the sweep
and turn of a river
Draining the rotten-granite hills up Shigaraki
On a nineteen-fifty-seven Honda cycle model C
Rode with some Yamanashi wine "St. Neige"
Into the farmyard and the bellowing kiln.
Les & John
In ragged shirts and pants, dried slip
Stuck to with pineneedle, pitch,
dust, hair, woodchips;
Sending the final slivers of yellowy pine
Through peephole white blast glow
No saggars tilting yet and segers bending
neatly in a row--
Even their beards caked up with mud & soot
Firing for fourteen hours. How does she go.
Porcelain & stoneware: cheese dish. twenty cups.
Tokuri. vases. black chawan
Crosslegged rest on the dirt eye cockt to smoke--
The hands you layed on clay
Kickwheeld, curling,
creamed to the lip of nothing,
And coaxt to a white dancing heat that day
Will linger centuries in these towns and loams
And speak to men or beasts
When Japanese and English
Are dead tongues.
Richard Aerni Bloomfield, NY....firing tonight and had it brought to mind b
poem on the list. I know it won't fit onto a pot, but feel that it's fitting...
Leonard Smith on mon 9 sep 96
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>The Firing
>
>for Les Blakebrough and the memory of John Chappell
>
>
>by Gary Snyder
>
This is also one of my favourite poems.
Les Blakeborough was an Australian working in Japan and now works in
Tasmainia. John Chappel was a brilliant potter from England also working in
Japan at the time. Unfortunately on a stay here he was killed, in a
motorbike accident on the Sydney Habour Bridge, returning home from a
party. I was fortunate to see his Sydney exhibition.
Best wishes
Leo
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