The Vessel

You hold the vessel as though it breathes,
as though the clay remembers
the hands that first shaped it,
their palms red with earth,
their songs rising into the desert dusk.

The cross carved into its skin
is more than a mark—
it is a map, a wound,
a compass pointing inward
to the silence between worlds.

Your eyes carry the same weight—
hazel storms,
haunted not by what they see
but by what they cannot forget.

The turquoise on your hands
does not glitter,
it hums,
a low sound like water buried
beneath centuries of sand.

In this moment you are not just a man.
You are the keeper of fragments,
the living archive of longing,
a bridge between dust and breath.

And the vessel—
it is not empty.
It holds the echoes of ancestors,
and perhaps,
a shadow of yourself.