Apprentice OR Honing Potential

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Sometimes people tell me they have no flair for creativity. It isn’t true.  Maybe they cannot pen or paint to paper or compose a symphony or turn a lump of clay into masterpiece of ceramics...

Ah, but we create images even as we speak in any language, including sign language of course, and those images are received, interpreted and taken to heart.

Yes we all say and do things differently, but that is not only part of the charm of the human race, but also its natural flair for creativity. 

True, some people are more creative than others, but never let anyone tell you that you have no sense of creativity.

We are all apprentices to life and learning in different ways and with varying degrees of success that make us who we are - individuals.

This poem is a kenning.

APPRENTICE or HONING POTENTIAL

I am as clay

that can be shaped however

the potter chooses

and have little say in the matter

but must follow

where caring, firm hands lead

(in my best interests?)

while subtler firing needs

left unfulfilled

I am as steel,

shaped only with some difficulty

for another’s ends

yet the welder who knows how

to bend me to his will

does not hesitate to demonstrate

his skill if only to satisfy

an audience of but one person

in his sights

I am as poetry

that can be shaped however

the reader chooses,

led by the hand through a maze

of thoughts and feelings,

caring hands suggesting this way

or that, leaving us to make

our own fate nor judged for how

we turn out

Call me Individuality, first choice 

Apprentice to Humanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012, 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]