Upon Unearthing a Piece of Pottery

Precious pots break. The pieces become crocks in the bottom of a plant pot. After a span of time they fall into the compost heap and from there into the ground. The cycles of the Earth sleep them deep and then return them for a moment to the sun. Such moments bring memories, some no more than a hook to an earlier time, some are joyful, some bittersweet. Listening to an old song in the car, a shard of the same kind came to mind. This most precious of all vessels was lost a quarter of a century ago. My grief was a smashed and shattered thing not handled neatly and entire. Not easily swept up and tidied away. It exploded like thrown china. The shrapnel buried deep. The peices emerged without warning over years, like fish-bones, or the limescale in a cup of coffee, or a small stone among the oat-flakes. Their edges preserved like scalpels by soft and cunning wrappings in their hiding places. Their colours fresh, crimson and vermillion and whatever the colours of broken hearts or early-fallen fathers is.

On reaching my destination I had to sit and listen to the radio until my good order was restored. It wouldn't do to go into Costa in a state, now would in.