A MODERN POETIC BOWL
GRAHAM STEWART, EDINBURGH 2000
Auction: Day 2: Thursday 21 August - Lots 297 - end
Description
the simple hand-raised hemispherical bowl, with feature hallmarks, flanked to either side with inscription ‘from July evening’ and ‘by Norman MacCaig’ engraved to the interior with lines from the poem, ‘Something has been completed that everything is part of, Something that will go Being completed forever’, raised on small circular foot rim, engraved ‘J.M.S. - G.M.S/ 13TH MARCH 2000’
Dimensions
12.5cm diameter, 7.9oz
Footnote
July Evening
A bird’s voice chinks and tinkles
Alone in the gaunt reedbed –
Tiny silversmith
Working late into the evening.
I sit and listen. The rooftop
With a quill of smoke stuck in it
Wavers against the sky
In the dreamy heat of summer.
Flowers’ closing time: bee lurches
Across the hayfield, singing
And feeling its drunken way
Round the air’s invisible corners.
And grass is grace. And charlock
Is gold of its own bounty.
The broken chair by the wall
Is one with immortal landscapes.
Something has been completed
That everything is part of,
Something that will go on
Being completed forever.
Norman MacCaig