TWO POEMS BY SARAH HOWE
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| Paul Ward, "White Glazed Porcelain Pitcher" (c. 1940) |
Finely potted white glazed porcelain cup, Dehua ware
The English will forget who invented tea.
The way you might not guess, at first,
who made me, or why. The riddle of my origins
begins on a spinning wheel in Fujian, and ends
across two continents, with a silversmith
in Restoration London. I was made once
in a kiln’s stark flame, feeling the translucent
glaze harden at my lip. Once cool, I was ready
for the kiss of alcohol. On summer evenings
between friends I brimmed with rice wine
no less refined than my own pure moon –
this white the Chinese call Dehua, but you
might know as blanc-de-Chine. Some twists
in my provenance are lost even to me:
a Pope’s embassy, the halls of Versailles,
hands that held me up to the light in awe
at my lustre; placed me in locked cabinets
with seahorses, sextants, unicorns’ tails.
But somewhere along the way that clod
of a smith insisted on gilding the lily.
I still remember the grip of those red-hot
scallops clamped around my rim, the strange
weight of this metal foot: never again
will I rise for a toast, bright against the night’s
black silk. Remade in your imagination:
a sugar bowl. The brittle lumps would clink
against my delicately tapering sides
like coal into a pail. A creature of two
worlds, but belonging to none. Tell me,
is there a word for it in this new tongue?
Pair of Incense Burners: Dog of Fo
A queer old pair, like two
you can tell by the ribboned
our left front paws. Widowers.
our yang, once dandled upturned
to signal their maternal sides.
a singed mane, a broken
you’d never guess from these
Panting, we proffer the leashes
as if bounding up for walkies.
ferocious guardians flanked
door or shrine, driving off
growl – or a puff of smoke
Thrust together by chance
muddle along. Two centuries
Not exactly native here
haunting your country piles
Most recently we took up
mantlepiece to sentinel
We did this duty solemnly
like secret service agents
As for that spell in the
there. We still shiver at
We are lions, you know.
misconception amongst
we do resemble pug-nosed
because our maker never
as he did on China’s east
would stroke our backs
more flamboyant than hers
left shoes. Male and male:
balls we crook beneath
Our long-lost mates, yin to
cubs like eerie miniatures
Still, we’re not unscathed:
spout, betray a tragic history
benignly dentured grins.
gripped between our teeth
You might forget our role:
either side of a traditional
ill-spirits with a deep-bellied
from the other end’s hole
or a canny auctioneer, we
on, we hardly ever quarrel.
we’re adopted denizens –
while failing to blend in.
station on a dusty English
it seemed, a carriage clock.
heads erect, ready to leap
from our blocky pedestals.
museum store, let’s not go
the sight of bubble-wrap.
The dog thing’s a common
foreign ghosts like you. True,
shih tzus, but that’s simply
saw a lion up close, living
coast. The lady of the house
with their armoured plaits
The admiring this fine green glaze.
Sarah Howe (1983). In the Chinese Ceramics Gallery. London: The White Review. October 2021.
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