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Rebus You work with what you are given the red clay of grief, the black clay of stubbornness going on after. Clay that tastes of care or carelessness, clay that smells of the bottom of rivers or dust. Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live, each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table. There are honeys so bitter no one would willingly choose to take them. The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity, honey of cruelty, fear. This rebus—slip and stubbornness, bottom of river, my own consumed life— when will I learn to read it plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire? Not to understand it, only to see. As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty, we become our choices. Each yes, each no continues, this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup. The ladder leans into its darkness. The anvil leans into its silence. The cup sits empty. How will I enter this question the clay has asked? Jane Hirshfield Copyright 2000 by Five Points, Georgia State University. Copyright 2000 The Daily Poetry Association "http://www.poems.com/today.htm" janet paterson 53 now / 41 dx pd / 37 onset pd / 44 dx cd / 43 onset cd tel: 613 256 8340 url: "http://www.geocities.com/janet313/" email: "[log in to unmask]" smail: PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada