Episode 12: Purpose

for a preface, see the home page of my work stories: Paradise (aka The Job)

The Ownerless Mug

The dishwasher churns
the disposal growls
and a mist rises over stacks of dishes,
when there appears one of the ownerless mugs
returning from its new-found home,
its blue stripe grinning up at me.

I imagine it still covered in the fingerprints
of a lady whose children's names keep slipping out of her hands.
One thing she does know is the comfort of a warm cup of coffee
clasped in her wrinkled hands.

The ownerless mug is not without purpose.

It wears its blue stripe like a badge of office
as it shrugs away the memories of the cupboard corner
and proudly does what it was made to do.

"Wash me, send me out again," it smilingly pleads from the dishwashing rack.

This encourages my heart,
as the purpose or the destiny or the direction keeps slipping from my own hands.
All I know is some small comfort in letting it write itself,
whatever it may be.

Whatever I may be,
may yet be shaped and fired in Heaven's kiln
and painted with a blue stripe.

The aimless person is not without purpose.