# 18 summer summit

The front of the kiln is bricked up. A propane burner is propped in the base for preheat. Now is the moment when we look around, sit back on our heels and think about the seeds of ideas that are planted in the pots that are slowly warming up in the kiln. I know a lot of my artist and potter friends have found it difficult to work during, first, the pandemic and now the demonstrations and unrest. It’s been an incredibly beautiful spring. We can write about the flowers in our gardens, the weeds that persist with tenacity, and the creativity displayed in the way that they spread. We can look at nature not just to seek respite from the psychic battlefield, but also as a means to continue.

HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good
mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something
about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself
but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown
& lord knows I have been called by what I look like
more than I have been called by what I actually am &
I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this
exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning
something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything
worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive
to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather
clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent
heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning,
you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

–Hanif Abdurraqib