The Mixing Bowl by Gunilla Norris excerpted from the book, "Becoming Bread"

The Mixing Bowl by Gunilla Norris

The Mixing Bowl by Gunilla Norris
excerpted from the book, "Becoming Bread"

Here on the table
is the mixing bowl.
Brown and ordinary,
turned on the potters wheel,
it has an umber rim
and glazed cinnamon-speckled sides.

Its task is to be open,
a simple space.
This bowl is clay, earth, matter.
Particular.
We are like it.
Clay, earth, matter.
Particular and vast when we are empty...

When life can fill us
to the rim, brimming.

We are the mixing place,
where terror and hate,
where love and hope,
the way we move,
our smiles and uncertainties,
our courage and stupidities
are all embraced.

We are the body bowl...
the forming space,
the home of possiblity.