The Shape Of Things To Come Poem by Sidi Mahtrow

Standing on pedestals quiet and majestic
The finished product of the creator's art.
Will those who view them, understand
The message cast in clay by man?

Revealing subtle obvious flaws
This is the way of objects
Shaped by the hands of the creator.
Not six-sigma perfection.

As students shaped by the teacher
They have become a new image as
Something unrecognized
As simply, lumps of clay.

They have undergone the reducing fire,
Driving out impurities and
Giving up some of their substance
So that they could be born anew.

See them as a transition point in being
Between the inanimate and the living.
A creation not unlike that from the womb
Each different, yet so alike exiting the fiery tomb.

Forgotten are those that failed
Shards on the pathway of time,
Some misshapen; others simply failed
As internally they lacked the substance to survive.

Those broken idols are a reminder
That life is one of challenge,
Where in the end the creator decides
Who and what shall survive.

These are the finished ones
Colored by elements that fuse
Into their outer being, a glaze.
Each represents a transition.

Given life by he who
Shares the vision,
As they become
Reality.

The shape of the future -

(On viewing the sculpture at Florida Southern College, January 2007)