Steve Berman Potery

Song of the Yurok Pipe

A soapstone bowl made smooth and round
with ocean colors – greens, dark browns
a short stright stem of manzanita
unlike any pipe I’ve seen
it took a while to figure out
to smoke it you lie on your back
feeling the earth rise up beneath you
ready to dream tobacco dreams

A Yurok man might dream of wealth
dentalium shells red flicker feathers
a white deer’s hide obsidian knife
redwood canoe carved with a heart
and lungs to give it strength
and wives with abalone skirts
that clinked like water over stones
as they swayed in the dance

All this and yet the greatest wealth
a man could dream might be a song
that’s his alone a song to call
his spirit helper for the hunt
or possibly a vision of the salmon chief
leading his tribe from Klamath mouth
upriver to Weitchpek

I keep the pipe where I can see it
on my dresser next to a soupspoon
of myrtlewood perhaps carved by
the same craftsman along with other
little treasures from my past
almost an altar these things speak to me
remind me but of what
I’m not so sure

Perhaps of how whole worlds can rise
flourish and fade for all their beauty
like the many languages we’ve lost and still
are losing daily each a human
world and each could be a ship
that’s lost at sea with all its passengers
and which will never come to shore

Or else it is the simple beauty
the workmanship these things reveal
spurring me to hone my craft
my music and the poetry
I struggle with wishing to have
something that’s worthy to pass on
to those who will be coming after
something to bring a smile
a moment of reflection
as for me this Yurok pipe

Steve Berman
September 27, 2020
Grants Pass OR