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Mary Lou Sanelli

THE POTTER'S SHED
 —Otter Rock, Oregon

The shed is lined with bags of clay.
Clay before possibilities.
Before technique is crucial and extraneous
at once. Before it’s hauled to a gallery
where tourists browse
after peering into The Devil's Punch Bowl,
a chiseled hole in rock where waves race through
and recede, wild sea
flying in every direction.

This is what I veer off Highway 101 to see
after slowing to a crawl where a bluff
hangs slack, tree roots exposed
as if a limb had been attached.
For miles disclaimers scar the shoreline
so by the time I reach any sand,
I'm so cautious it's not fun anymore.

I came to this granite coast to write
but edginess fills my room
of contrasts: window shades buckling
like leaves, mattress mushy and damp.

In town, a bearded man talks
to himself, to locals, to me
reluctantly raising my head
because I’ve been alone for days
and don't mind his baiting my silence.

No way I’ll turn back.

I flee over the mountains with sun
rising in my windows. Speed my way
into summer. Leave the potter's shed
to the potter. Bring back of it a glazed-blue cup
and in memory, after I settle back
into routines of doing,

what time
does not chip away.

 

—Mary Lou Sanelli
from Craving Water, Pleasure Boat Studio, 2004

 

JULY MORNING, CHETZEMOKA PARK

I rock in the double swing
closest to the sandbox
where moms chat up pre-schools
or the latest movie at The Rose.

Meanwhile, morning strolls toward noon.
Soon one woman will brush
sand off her child’s backside
and the others will follow suit.

On this green stretch of land
beach-bound, camouflaged in cedar, I sink
into calm even when a woman walks by and throws
a glance that shoots a dagger through my mood.
It’s appropriate to say, due to the frankness
of our last bout with words I am cut
from her life but that’s another small town poem
entirely.

On a rare day without work,
I lie on my back looking up
at a maze of clouds that give shape
to a puffy clan of faces I try to name.
One looks like my Uncle Pete
morning after a poker game
up there in a sky of double-chins.

This is when it strikes
me there are no words to make this real
more real. When watching the crows
is more than enough effort for one day.
That and giving thanks.

By the gazebo, a friend mows the lawn
and waves because when I think of it
we’ve know each other a decade now
plus a few years. His presence
comforting as everything
else I’ve grown used to.

In summer it’s easy to resist all I know
of fall, winter, persistent parts of spring.
When sunless skies affirm the truth
of rivers, rain, lakes, and sea.
Where, if a city park could speak she’d say,
Girl, don’t whine! Rain is the very reason
I am ravishing as this!

 

 —Mary Lou Sanelli
from Craving Water, Pleasure Boat Studio, 2004