Ruby’s Gift (As told by Sheila...)
Ruby O’Burke
was about 90.
Small, lively.
White, short, flat-cut
sides and bangs.
Interested, pert.
A flat upstairs, in
Noe Valley, San Francisco,
with books and shelves,
not overly neat,
much like a student’s,
and a pottery studio below.
She said, “Oh! Let me
show you
a gift I just got
when I was in Japan.”
Her frail hands, trembling
in anticipation, opened
an elegant, plain wooden
box to reveal a
small tea cup.
“Look,” she said, “how beautifully the
glaze crawled.” Indeed it had, inside and out,
lumpy, mottled, and webbed.
Clearly flawed, I knew,
being a potter as well.
Yet she beheld her gift
with such childlike
amazement. In Japan, this was
a treasure.
Years later, I had made a large mug
for my now departed, somewhat
flawed father. Its glaze had crawled
completely. Yet I have not tossed it.
For each time I hold my father’s mug,
I can see in both
a treasure.
- Scott O'Brien