Bowl

by Heather Swan

for my mother

From the mud in her hands,
the bowl was born.
Opening like a flower
in an arch of petals,
then becoming a vessel
both empty and full.

Later, in the kiln
it was ravaged by fire,
its surface etched and vitrified,
searing the glaze into glass
as its body turned
to stone.

It is at the edge of damage
that beauty is honed.
And in Japan,
the potter tells me,
when a tea bowl
cracks in the fire,
that crack is filled
with gold.

From A Kinship with Ash, Terrapin Books, 2020.
Reprinted with Permission.

Read this and other poems by Heather Swan in A Kinship with Ash, available for purchase online.

The practice Heather Swan refers to in the last stanza of “Bowl” is called kintsugi, which in Japanese means literally, “golden joinery.” Yet this drive to highlight the cracks in something—what some might call its failures—goes against the message most of us receive throughout our lives, that we should be striving for a perfection I’m not even sure exists for anyone. We are each born of such humble materials, “from the mud,” as it were, and are then sent into the fires of life with little protection, often to be “ravaged . . . etched and vitrified.” We are then paradoxically encouraged to hide all evidence of past pain, to conceal our scars and the markings that can render us kinder and more compassionate people. Eventually, we come to see, as Heather Swan puts it so well: “It is at the edge of damage that beauty is honed.” It is by risking brokenness that we grow stronger and kinder, “a vessel both empty and full,” made more true by its so-called flaws. Brené Brown, who researches shame and imperfection reminds us: “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.” Instead of covering up our “cracks” or pretending they don’t exist, this poem implies that we can flaunt them like gold for all the world to see.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Think back to some supposed flaw or failure in your past, which you have come to see as a source of beauty and strength. How have you learned to highlight your own “cracks,” and embrace imperfection as evidence of authenticity and beauty?

ABOUT THE POET: Heather Swan

Heather Swan’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, Phoebe, The Raleigh Review, Midwestern Gothic, and Cold Mountain. Her book of poems, A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books), published in 2020, was long-listed for the Julie Suk Award and her chapbook The Edge of Damage ( Parallel Press), won the Wisconsin Writers Chapbook Award.  Her creative nonfiction book Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Her essays appear in such places as Aeon, Belt, Catapult, Emergence, ISLE, Minding Nature, The Learned Pig, and Terrain. She teaches environmental literature and writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS

James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.

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