7 Khordad 1405
Quatrain 63 of 75
“None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What? did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"”
Reflection · Spring 1405
The ungainly vessel speaks last and speaks truest. The sneering — the social judgment of the crooked pot, the one that didn't come out right — and the ungainly pot asks the only question that actually matters: if I lean awry, did the Hand shake? In spring this verse is for everyone who arrives at the new year feeling misshapen. The pot did not make itself. The lean is not the pot's design.
If the hand of the Potter shook — if whatever made you made you with this particular imperfection built in — then the sneering is misdirected. What? did the Hand then shake? In spring it asks for honesty about origins.