Breaking the Mold, by Parrish Finn

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Nepal) 13th century

Breaking the Mold
 
I feel now I knew nothing then
When you were a stranger
 
Now, behind glass cases, amid hushed voices
We peer in, shoulder to shoulder
 
And face cast metal statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas,
Their curved-lips relaxed as empty bows, their jewel-lids closed
 
And your eyes green as ponds--
your gaze making them human
 
I imagine they feel love, 
and it wasn’t what they were expecting
 
I wonder for their apprentice— was it special every time?
To see the clay chrysalis breaking
 
under the hammer, open around
the soft gold god face, intact and smiling
 
They weren't expecting the space
Wide as a field when you put the basket down
 
And spread your arms— that soft, hay-under-foal filled space
You made me. Formed enough already
 
I began to stretch the full length of me 
And my body, blood filled, moved.
 
Parrish Finn 

Parrish Finn is an artist and writer from North Carolina. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and works as an environmental educator teaching gardening classes in NYC public schools.  She has been reading and writing poetry since she could read and write and has finally started to submit for publication.