Peter Skrzynecki: A Lump of Clay

A Lump of Clay

I brought back a lump of clay

that I dug from the banks

of the Styx River with my hands

for no particular reason—

covered it with a wet rag

and kept it in a bucket under the school

where I was teaching.

Some time later, on impulse,

I took it out into the open—

brought more water, a board to work on

and started to knead and shape it—

turning it, over and over,

until my fingers and hands grew sore.

All that effort of moulding

brought nothing to show that had meaning.

The exercise seemed useless.

The school was in the bush. There was

no one around for miles—

and yet I felt the eyes of the universe

were on me as I continued

to make nothing that made sense

out of a lump of clay.

One attempt appeared

as a figure, half-human, half-fish,

trapped, unable to escape

the waters swirling around it—

another, head turned to one side,

asleep, beneath foliage

that grew out of the clay.

Only when it resembled a skull

did I stop, knowing that I could do no more.

The hours were growing darker and the sun

beginning to set, the clay

in my hands glowing more red than yellow

and the cries of birds more eerie around the school.

I knew what had to be done on the way back

to where I was boarding.

Stopping by the roadside, unwrapping it,

I heaved it as far as I could into the bush,

listening to it thud and roll somewhere down a gully.

I could remember the fear that ran through me

when I looked into the skull’s eye sockets—

but remain puzzled, to this day, as to why I dug it up

from the banks of the Styx in the first place.

Peter Skrzynecki