A Thing To Speak Of

I could have been a thing spoken, a fine Chinese porcelain vase for instance with all my nature painted upon it. Herons in flight, storks stalking, ibis reciting the ‘I Ching’ to other ibis, lotus and chrysanthemums floating upon silky everlasting clouds - a clear visual thing that can be spoken of. Not this roughhewn wooden bowl of a being. I could have been read by scholars, translated into a hundred languages, held up to the light a translucent testament to imagery and and all pictographic symbolism, an objective reality shaped by the light that comes through me, not this thick hollowed out bowl full of a bitter brew only fit to be drunk by drunks and other roughhewn poets.