Crucible

At a pottery inland from the tourist beach, a crowd arrives for the annual unloading
of the wood-burning kilns.

There’s a fiddle and guitar, the spice of chili cooking outdoors. Stacks of split wood,
cinders in the fireboxes. Sand and ash underfoot.

Light falls a little way into the cold kilns and we see the ware packed tight as seed heads,
a closet of surprises. We want it all laid before us like gifts for a king.