Kintsugi

Kintsugi

 

touring the Gaeltacht

in a clapped-out Morris 

I was pretty much lost

but that was fine by me -

I’m one for serendipity

 

as evening settled,

I pulled up at a crest above

a vacant plain of burned black earth

 

I spotted a distant glow,

drove towards it

and arrived outside

the shanty sagging walls

of a turf-roof pumpkin cottage,

 

a faded window-sign, bi-lingual,

‘seomraí ar fáil - rooms available’

 

the door opened straight away,

a full four feet and inches man

as wide as he was high

stood beaming, ‘fáilte’

 

the passage walls were lined with shelves

of boxes, bound with string, stretching,

it seemed, to the heart of the Earth

and further

 

we sat on well-worn leather 

wing-chairs in a fire-cosy kitchen

 

the host’s feet danced just above

the well-worn flag-stone floor

 

he offered a pipe,

‘Foggy Fox, a silk smooth smoke’

and poured tumblers of Tullamore,

‘heavenly nectar… slàinte mhath’

‘slàinte’

 

‘so, what’s in all the boxes?’

‘broken pots, I get sent them, I mend them’

‘you must be busy’

‘I have all the time in the world’

 

he sipped a second Tullamore

and told how each box

held evidence of misery - 

broken promises, broken marriages,

when couples reconcile

he rebuilds the shards with molten gold

and sees the box gets back to them -

a sign that spoiled lives can get better,

 

‘so be a little kinder in future!’

 

‘you must have hundreds stored away’

‘more like thousands - give or take’

 

an exquisite glowing porcelain

in an embrace of golden veins

snatched my breath away

 

‘that is magical, do you take Visa?

American Express? name your price’

 

‘my work is beyond price’

‘do you get to mend a lot?’

‘these days? not so many.’