Reshaping

This morning I read a couple of Barbara Kingsolver essays, then a poem by Joy Harjo, and the next thing I knew this poem arrived.

I've been reading a lot this morning
about remembering and forgetting.

I find myself in a flux between the two.

I have a word I've been carrying with me:
reshaping.

I am reshaping my Christmas holiday,
my way of thinking about curriculum,
my plans for the summer.

I'm looking to overcome little niggling fears.
Going to parties. Making the drive.
Opening to discovery by digging through boxes
and finding new highways.

It's a gentle process...reshaping.

I'm reminded of a Goddess Making in Clay
workshop I took many years ago,
how the clay goddess was made and
remade over and over again. She took
so many forms in my hands.

I was young then. I didn't comprehend
with my being this reshaping. It was
intellectual, an arc I was being taught.

Now -- it's organic and real and inescapable.

Now I can see and feel I am the clay
and the clay in my own hands.

I am both.

And the shape that appears is both
real and illusory.

It's remembering and forgetting
as the shape conforms to nothing.

It's here. It's gone.
And the only proper response is joy.