Hermes: Old Clay

Hermes And Company

Mask: Hermes / Puck

Sculpture mix; raku-fired.

(Not sure which year that was.)

Graves: "A Pinch of Salt"

A Pinch of Salt

When a dream is born in you

With a sudden clamorous pain,

When you know the dream is true

And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,

O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch

You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.

Dreams are like a bird that mocks,

Flirting the feathers of his tail.

When you seize at the salt-box,

Over the hedge you'll see him sail.

Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:

They watch you from the apple bough and laugh.

Poet, never chase the dream.

Laugh yourself, and turn away.

Mask your hunger; let it seem

Small matter if he come or stay;

But when he nestles in your hand at last,

Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast. 

--Robert Graves

Hermes/Puck: sculpture mix; raku fired.  

Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn?

I love my alma mater, warts and all.  And, to keep with that metaphor, she'll bewitch you if you give her half a chance.  Half-Circe, half-Sibyl of Cumae?

Whenever I approach that gate, I hear Virgilian echoes; I just do.

(Homeric resonances too: Holy moly, Hermes!)


Let's hear it, especially, for Latin Summer Workshop '88!
"O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem."  --Virgil, The Aeneid, from Book I.