NaPoWriMo 2021: Day 0

Prompt: Today, we’d like to challenge you to spend a few minutes looking for a piece of art that interests you in the online galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art… After you’ve selected your piece, study the photographs and the accompanying text. And then – write a poem!

this heart is a terracotta kernos
inconceivably preserved through time
twenty-five splintered and unique arms
each extending their own sacred offer

each extending their own sacred offer
to a god or goddess beyond their reach
adoration insufficient but ne’er withheld
born of naught but the things of nature

born of naught but the things of nature
tender and pliable in its youth
yet strengthened in years of proving
refusing to shrink from the flame

refusing to shrink from the flame
willful ignorance of the glory within
a whole more than its parts in summation
this heart is a terracotta kernos