Monday, July 22, 2013

Jared Carter: "Cutting Glass"

















It takes a long, smooth stroke practiced carefully
over many years and made with one steady motion.

You do not really cut glass, you score its length
with a sharp, revolving wheel at the end of a tool

not much bigger than a pen-knife. Glass is liquid,
sleeping. The line you make goes through the sheet

like a wave through water, or a voice calling in a dream,
but calling only once. If the glazier knows how to work

without hesitation, glass begins to remember. Watch now
how he draws the line and taps the edge: the pieces

break apart like a book opened to a favorite passage.
Each time, what he finds is something already there.

In its waking state glass was fire once, and brightness;
all that becomes clear when you hold up the new pane.
 
 

"Cutting Glass" by Jared Carter. Published in Yarrow, 1987.

Photography credit: Fraunhofer (originally color).




 

1 comment :

  1. Cutting that glass that way is really wonderful. I believe and experienced and well trained person is the only one who can do it. It needs precision and the results should be clean and equal. I love it. -www.jordonglass.com

    ReplyDelete

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