This poem was inspired by a tweet from @RobertYellin The art of making broken pottery more beautiful, kintsugi. pic.twitter.com/Q1ZLWzWQs
I replied @kenchawkin Wow! What a metaphor for turning obstacles into opportunities. Life’s lessons build character.
I thought about it and made it into a haiku, then a tanka, and sent it as another reply to his tweet.
I also thought it was appropriate for a piece of Japanese pottery to have inspired a poem in one of the forms of Japanese poetry. I don’t speak Japanese but am reading kintsukuroi as having five syllables.
Here is a link to Wikipedia explaining kintsugi or kintsukuroi. Read the explanation under the picture of the piece of pottery, then the poem.
kintsugi tanka
kintsukuroi
turning obstacles into
opportunities
life’s lessons build character
what was broken is now whole
Robert Yellin was featured on this blog before. See Takumi is not ‘lost in translation’ in this beautiful film about Japan’s diverse artisan tradition.
Speaking of cracked things, Leonard Cohen said there’s a crack in everything—how the light gets in. It came thru him & lit up a broken humanity.
Same for this Canadian writer, but from a different perspective: Richard Wagamese bravely entered the cracks in his life to reveal the hidden gold buried within.
Another post on this theme: William Stafford’s poetry lightened his life having woven a parachute out of everything broken.
I later put this related post together: Japanese culture: poetic aesthetics, artistry, and martial arts, inspired me to write haiku and tanka.
The Uncarved Blog 