AutumnRubaiyat · 63 of 75
Quatrain 63
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?"”
Omar Khayyamtr. Edward FitzGerald, 1859
Reflection · Autumn
None answer'd this — the silence after the ungainly vessel's question is autumn's silence: the silence of things being too true to reply to. Did the Hand shake? No answer comes. No answer is available. A Vessel of a more ungainly Make speaks last because it has waited all year for a space in which to speak.
If the Potter's Hand shook when making me, then I am the Potter's product. My lean is His lean. My awry is His awry. And the sneering is not about me at all — it is about the Hand. Only I am here. Leaning. And being sneered at for it.