I came across this poem (pasted further in this post) a few months ago, and though I could relate with it then, I realise now how much more I always resonated with it.
In one of my recent posts titled, “The world of boxes”, I am trying to question who I am and which of the boxes I fit in. Do we really need a form? It does give us more confidence in terms of who we are, as we have an identity in the material world, but is that not illusory and limiting?
P.S. “You gave me form but maybe I wanted to be formless..? Still wondering.”
Pitchers of Clay
Outside the Potter’s shop upon the way
In patient rows we stand, pitchers of clay
Under a copper-clouded sky of gold
Expecting every moment to be sold.
Although we have no language, yet we feel
A bitterness towards the Potter’s wheel
Which moulded us, what though without a flaw,
To shape, which is against our being’s law.
Pitcher’s are beautiful and yet, indeed,
Even from beauty we would all be freed
And, slipping into Earth, secure escape
From the enchanted tyranny of shape.
Some of us pitchers, tired of being, drop
And break to pieces in the Potter’s shop.
Pathetic things! What does the Potter care
For the pale weariness of Earthenware?
- Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
