Quashie’s Verse

But what now is the length of Quashie’s verse? He who can no longer measure by kend or by chamma or by ermijja; he who knew his poems by how they fit in earthenware, perfect as water, words shaping themselves against red clay grooves. And though no two jars were precisely like each other – it worked for Quashie – this ‘just about’ measure – for words are like that – each one carrying its own distance. Even this, despite its best shaping efforts, will never quite be a jar. So what now shall Quashie do – his old measures outlawed, and him instructed now in universal forms, perfected by universal men who look nothing and sound nothing like Quashie?

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