1.
My Mother`s Dinner Service.
I keep returning to these, my favourite plates,
To study every detail of a picture
Transferred onto the white underglaze
In a factory in the English West Midlands.
It must be strange to live in such a world,
To cross that blue, three arched antique bridge, or
Snap a blue branch off that leaning willow
And shave it into a rod.
Profit was obviously the initial motif,
And to create a legend is not a common thing,
Yet these plates soon became my porcelain library
Of tales no scholar filched from Chinese scrolls.
When a boy I spent hours studying these plates,
And often wondered what it would be like
To be an outlaw changed into a Swallow
Soaring free above a calcium white lake,
My blue wings lifting me into the stillness
Of a sky the same colour as the lake,
My rescued love singing close beside me,
Her persecutors dumb struck on the bridge.
The inauthentic details in this picture
Were meant to tell no story, or so the artist thought
When he first put a blue pen to white paper.
Yet, the more I look, the more I think I see.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
17th. - 18th. February 2018. - May 25th. - 26th. 2018.
`2.
Willow Pattern.
I am this shadow
You cannot hold me
Only observe the outline
Transformed into birds
We soar high above the arched bridge
Into the white sky
Briefly our song is heard
Among the Weeping Willows
The huntsman skims a stone
To shatter a fleeting image
But his aim is faulty
We have already flown far and wide
Out of reach
Later in another country
Transformed into our former selves
We sip green tea together
The simplicity of the ceremony
Instills a profound peace
Holding hands in the dark
The certainty of our love feels stronger
Than the rocks that make up the mountains
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. November 2012.
The first three lines written 22nd. august 1972.
Although written nearly six years apart, I think that these two poems compliment each other perfectly.
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