Dinner With Humans
I sip wine from a glass made
from a glassblower’s breath,
a whisper of creation, the inhale and exhale.
The lungs filled with heat and potential,
mingled breath and molten glass -
a touch of the divine, the breath of life.
It has felt the heat of the furnace’s maw
And the cooling grace of a bucket of spring water.
I eat bread from a plate made from a potter’s hand,
the steady pulse of silt and bone, centrifugal dance.
Cracks like spider-silk in the muted glaze, a ripple
on the side where the potter’s hand shook.
Kneaded dough of earth and fire,
the aching hands that formed its shape.
It has felt the heat of the kiln’s glowing embers,
opening to the cooling grace of a winter’s night.
I place the glass and plate upon a woven cloth, a narrative of the
weaver’s persistence, back and forth - the shuttle flies,
a wooden bird, weaving the flax, once rooted in damp earth,
translucent as skin, with wool shorn from a sheep’s back,
memories of hills, spun with grazing and seasons.
The weft and the woof, the weaver’s bent back.
The cloth absorbs the heat of the potter’s plate
and the coolness of the glassblower’s vessel.
Linda H.Y. Hegland is an award-winning poetry, lyric essay, and non-fiction writer who lives and writes on a small farm in Nova Scotia, Canada. She writes the occasional short story. Born in Bath, England, she grew up on the stark prairies of western Canada, and now returns to coastal/bucolic climes in Nova Scotia. Her writing most often reflects the influence of place, and sense of place, and one’s complex and many-layered relationship with it. She has published in numerous literary and art journals and has had work nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has had previously published two books of poetry - ‘Bird Slips, Moon Glows’ and ‘White Horses’, a book of lyric essays - ‘Place of the Heart’, and a book of verses and vignettes - ‘Remember in Pieces’. She is currently working on a memoir (of sorts) that will be released in 2026.
Stunning piece of poetry
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