Not a Lament but an Ode to the Makers

Someone somewhere long ago      
with a pair of hands, a bit of earth
and a thirsty soul, crafted
a beautiful bowl. Just as someone
not so long ago made a buffalo
of chrome, a staircase made
of stone, a cracked egg of dinosaur
and a pendant made of bone.

Just as someone long ago with a fire
in her belly told the story of Kokapelli
and someone somewhere else
inspired someone else
to marry cathedral glass to
the light, the dragon to the kite
the crooked sun

flower vase to the starry starry night.
And someone somewhere else scratched
the image of his lover at the entrance
of a cave, and someone built a labyrinth
and a maze and elsewhere someone else
made of sweet grass, a braid. 
                            All this because

nothing stays the same. All this because
               all the world’s a stage.
All this because to make
is to praise. 
                Here in this place, a toast then,
to the movers and the shakers,
                  the dancers and the dreamers
the dabblers and the makers, and the universal ways
                      we rise,
                              we make, we praise.

Wendy Videlock

Image from Rawpixel, in the public domain. Image cropped. 

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

The End of Princeton’s Honor

John Byron Kuhner

On Monday, the Princeton University faculty voted overwhelmingly to end the 133-year-old tradition of unproctored examinations. Princeton…

AI and the Miracle that Makes Us Human

Francis X. Maier

It occurred to me recently, like a lit match in a black vault, that I’ve never been…

Doing Justice While Making Catholic Schools Affordable

George Weigel

Before joining what once imagined itself the world’s greatest deliberative body, U.S. senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) was…