Our Love is Like a Coffee Mug...

by: Levi Linville

Toiling over the broken soil
Searching deeply for perfection
Down into the colder ground
Pulling earth up for inspection

Too much mulch, too much rock
Too much grit, too much sand
And not enough of other things
Known only by a potter’s hand

5 Days of working, searching, digging,
Lifting, pulling, and finding clay
Now the bags are brimming fully
Time to spin this clay away

Our love is like a coffee mug
It starts off in the ground
The potter has to pull it out
Else how can it be found?
Like dough the clay is kneaded well
The clay’s thrown upon the wheel
But not just at any point thereon
The center is ideal.

Toiling over the potter’s wheel
Searching closely for perfection
Round and round he spins the ground
Reforming this dirt of resurrection

The potter makes

a hundred mugs
But, for him, none will suffice
He continues to work for his perfect mug
And labors for days and nights

4 days of working, searching, throwing
Spinning, shaping, and molding clay
Now his shelves are full of mugs
He hopes one makes it all the way

Our love is like a coffee mug
It starts off in the ground
The potter has to pull it out
Else how can it be found?
He labors long and hard with it
For an object of desire
Many cast he from the wheel
But some make it to the fire.

With steady hands the kiln is filled
Each piece within its place
The air flows freely, stoking flames
Controlled by the potter’s pace

Glowing red, many shatter
Destroying others in the blast
Not relenting, the fires roar
The potter knowing the best will last

Sure enough, the best survived
Emerging different, something new
The flames transformed the mugs of clay
To stoneware, hard and fully fused

Our love is like a coffee mug
It starts off in the ground
The potter has to pull it out
Else how can it be found?
Many mugs are made, indeed,
And many mugs are lost,
For just as the first fire purges some
The next fire has a cost.

With steady hands the potter works
Making colors of pure amazing
From the moment that the mugs cool down
Their "foot" is waxed for glazing

Cool and glazed, shelved and drying
Each piece different form the rest
But once again the kiln is filled
For the last and hottest test

Sure enough, the best survived
Emerging even better than before

What once was simple dirt and sand

Is, by toil and fire, now more

Our love is like a coffee mug
It starts off in the ground
The potter has to pull it out
Else how can it be found?
Like dough, love must be kneaded well

Labored over desperately
For through many fires it must endure
Before being found complete.

.

(And I just thought this was a cool picture!)