Poem: "Broken Light"
Jan. 11th, 2020 05:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the January 7, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from shadowdreamer. It also fills the "Accident" square in my 1-1-20 card for the Less Usual Bingo Patterns fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.
"Broken Light"
[Thursday, October 15, 2015]
Shiv hadn't meant to bump
the bowl with his elbow, but it hit
the floor and cracked clean in half.
"Shit! I'm sorry," he said, crouching down
to pick up the pieces. "Was it important?"
"No, just fond," Luci said with a sigh.
"That's the first thing I bought at
a market here in town after I
started my freshman year."
"Shiiiiiit." He looked at
the pieces in his hands.
The red glaze had speckles
of pink and black scattered in it.
"I don't think I can fix it back like
it was. These multicolored glazes
react with my superpowers and
the mends show up as lines."
"It's okay, Shiv-ya," said Luci.
"You don't have to fix it."
But she still looked sad.
"Wait, I have another idea,"
Shiv said. "Do you still have
that stupid ring we found?"
They'd been fooling around
in a sandbox at the park, and
found what was probably
someone's old wedding ring,
beat to hell but still ... gold.
"I have it," Luci said,
and went to fetch the ring.
When she brought it, Shiv
spun the gold into fine wire
and pressed it into the crack.
He held the halves of the bowl
in his hands, using the gold like
glue to fasten the two sides
back together again.
When he finished,
you could barely see
the repair, until you tilted
the bowl and the seam glinted.
It looked like red clouds at sunset,
parted by a golden line of broken light
as if the sun was shining through.
"That's beautiful," Luci breathed.
"Thank you so much, Shiv-ya!"
"Welcome," Shiv said. "It's from
this craft book I saw. Kintsugi, that's
the name, some Japanese thing."
He handed her the bowl. "Even if
it's not the same, it still looks decent."
"I think it's even more beautiful
now that it's been broken and
repaired with gold," she said.
That wasn't quite the story of his life ...
but maybe he wanted it to be.
* * *
Notes:
Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold.
See Luci's kintsugi soup bowl.
shadowdreamer. It also fills the "Accident" square in my 1-1-20 card for the Less Usual Bingo Patterns fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. "Broken Light"
[Thursday, October 15, 2015]
Shiv hadn't meant to bump
the bowl with his elbow, but it hit
the floor and cracked clean in half.
"Shit! I'm sorry," he said, crouching down
to pick up the pieces. "Was it important?"
"No, just fond," Luci said with a sigh.
"That's the first thing I bought at
a market here in town after I
started my freshman year."
"Shiiiiiit." He looked at
the pieces in his hands.
The red glaze had speckles
of pink and black scattered in it.
"I don't think I can fix it back like
it was. These multicolored glazes
react with my superpowers and
the mends show up as lines."
"It's okay, Shiv-ya," said Luci.
"You don't have to fix it."
But she still looked sad.
"Wait, I have another idea,"
Shiv said. "Do you still have
that stupid ring we found?"
They'd been fooling around
in a sandbox at the park, and
found what was probably
someone's old wedding ring,
beat to hell but still ... gold.
"I have it," Luci said,
and went to fetch the ring.
When she brought it, Shiv
spun the gold into fine wire
and pressed it into the crack.
He held the halves of the bowl
in his hands, using the gold like
glue to fasten the two sides
back together again.
When he finished,
you could barely see
the repair, until you tilted
the bowl and the seam glinted.
It looked like red clouds at sunset,
parted by a golden line of broken light
as if the sun was shining through.
"That's beautiful," Luci breathed.
"Thank you so much, Shiv-ya!"
"Welcome," Shiv said. "It's from
this craft book I saw. Kintsugi, that's
the name, some Japanese thing."
He handed her the bowl. "Even if
it's not the same, it still looks decent."
"I think it's even more beautiful
now that it's been broken and
repaired with gold," she said.
That wasn't quite the story of his life ...
but maybe he wanted it to be.
* * *
Notes:
Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold.
See Luci's kintsugi soup bowl.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-11 12:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-11 01:29 pm (UTC)I do like this.
Yay!
Date: 2020-01-11 10:28 pm (UTC)Re: Yay!
Date: 2020-01-11 10:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-12 04:52 pm (UTC)I don't remember story title / author, but Luci had a vase from her family that she had repaired with copper on display in her apartment. It was smashed in the Shiv power meltdown after he was molested by her sister then spooked by Luci's family shrine. Shiv repaired the broken vase with more Kintsugi work.
Found it
Date: 2020-01-13 04:30 am (UTC)https://siliconshaman.dreamwidth.org/1309386.html
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-14 01:22 am (UTC)...wouldn’t that end up being pretty close to the same thing?
Well ...
Date: 2020-01-14 01:31 am (UTC)With kintsugi you get a crisp division between the ceramic and its mend. It's a very obvious mend, but the metallic lines look pretty good in most cases.
With superpowers, you get what seems like a perfectly whole piece of ceramic with fingertip-wide wide lines of different color or pattern. This sometimes looks good and other times just weird. Some glazes are monochromatic while others have multiple colors or patterns that can appear in response to subtle variations of texture, temperature, adjacent materials, etc. to create variegation. Running a superpower through that almost always interacts with the nature of the glaze to change its appearance compared to surrounding untouched areas. Shiv could take plain tiles and fingerpaint on them -- or even run his fingers evenly over a repaired pot -- but I don't think he's discovered that yet. Mending ceramic with multicolored glaze is therefore a bit hit-or-miss for him at this stage.