The Lost Art

The clay and soil that I mix
My palms on which the mud always sticks
An earthen pot that buds
The wheel and my fingers
Working in harmony...

My eyes have become weak now
Heat from the oven has left marks
Like a remark all over my body

My grandson all of ten
Tries to sell it to people
They know he is an easy catch
And try filling his mind
With the prospect of an chocolate instead of cash
But, my boy is an intelligent lad
He knows the difference
Between something brown and sweet from bread

One day he returned with the stock intact
There wasn’t a single piece that was sold
Without the company of food in our stomach
We slept that day and for days to come

He told me about the people
Who had tried to bargain with our life
We don’t cheat our customers
Is what they don’t know
For that facility they have to be in the cities
Where profit and not product matters

They have been fooled there
But the village isn’t corrupt
We eat to live and not live to eat
Is what escapes their mind

They want to adorn the crafted clay in their living room
But, even want to boast to their neighbors
About how they stole our food

Today, I have sent my lad
To sell all the goods in the city
The money that will come
A meal per day we will have
Rest is what he will study from
A school is what he will go to

He doesn’t deserve to bear the loss
Of an art that has been practiced for generations

I have sold the wheel
The mud from my hands
I have washed off
So what, If a potter has retired from the clan
I didn’t know that being poor
Was the main agenda of the plan...