White Porcelain Flower Bowl

To the eye, an ancient bell. Translucent hollow moon.

Microscopic fault may breathe a wave of cracks.

Merely a touch, the tap of thin fingernails.

From whole to broken,

the faint sigh of a rooftile in the wind.

I take this frailty to heart,

the fear of gain or loss,

the trembling of rainbeads at an eave,

one drop, another,

my palms damp while your milky color cools.

I raise you in respect,

as if pure light might suspend you.

Created, but made for ruin,

the chaste arc of your rim

suffering smoke, oil stains, crusts of rice or meal.

Soft rain nourishes the ear. Moon-silvered sickle of frost.

Unseen oblivion hones its affection.

How spent the mountains, how forgotten the ardors of earth.

Create or not create—

in this clay, the great hand hesitates.