From Clay

By Marilyn McMeen Miller Brown

Perhaps like these white stones—

Or like bronze—could I

Under the touch of your hand, Master,

Become a monument?

Look, I am dancing in a roseate circle

With laughing children, our hands clasped.

I am a woman: one of those whose smile

Into a child’s eyes gives milk,

Whose outstretched hand supplies food,

Whose voice through thy word offers good.

From my child’s instrument I hear

Tunes I never played;

I kneel in dark shade to pray.

Look, Master.

Even I shape the clay. …

I too flow, like the monument,

In a white touch of music on the summer air

And I fall into the rocker

With the soft rhythm of life

While my hands shape for warmth

With the threads of my care

As though with your arm.

I am learning, Master. …

Someday enough

To stand with these women

In the circle of your garden … alive …

To see myself, a monument,

Until I touch our living hands

No longer stone

Photography by Jed A. Clark