Two poems mentioning clay from The Glass Constellation, a collection of poems by Arthur Sze. Both poems were originally published in Sze’s 2019 book, Sight Lines. Sze is a National Book Award Winner and also received the 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Award for The Glass Constellation.
Doppler Effect
Stopped in cars, we are waiting to accelerate
along different trajectories. I catch the rising
pitch of a train—today one hundred nine people
died in a stampede converging at a bridge;
radioactive water trickles underground
toward the Pacific Ocean; nickel and copper
particulates contaminate the Brocade River.
Will this planet sustain ten billion people?
Ah, switch it: a spider plant leans toward
a glass door, and six offshoots dangle from it;
the more I fingered the clay slab into a bowl,
the more misshapen it became; though I have
botched this, bungled that, the errancies
reveal it would not be better if things happened
just as I wished; a puffer fish inflates on deck;
a burst of burnt rubber rises from pavement.
Salt Song
Zunis make shrines on the way to a lake where I emerge and Miwoks gather me
out of pools along the Pacific the cheetah thirsts for me and when you sprinkle
me on rib eye you have no idea how I balance silence with thunder in crystal you
dream of butterfly hunting in Madagascar spelunking through caves echoing with
dripping stalactites and you don’t see how I yearn to shimmer an orange aurora
against flame look at me in your hand in Egypt I scrubbed the bodies of kings
and queens in Pakistan I zigzag upward through twenty-six miles of tunnels
before drawing my first breath in sunlight if you heat a kiln to 2380 degrees and
scatter me inside I vaporize and bond with clay in this unseen moment a potter
prays because my pattern is out of his hands and when I touch your lips you
salivate and when I dissolve on your tongue your hair rises ozone unlocks a
single stroke of lightning sizzles the earth.
The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems
by Arthur Sze
Published 2021 by Copper Canyon Press
