Starting Over

Is it primordial soup?

Molten glass 2100 degrees

Orange hot, like looking into the sun

You gather with a seven foot long blow pipe

Always turning or it will fall off center

Or just fall off

Tricky work keeping liquid glass symmetrically balanced

If it cools too quickly, it will explode

Keep it hot

Keep on turning

Pipe pushes into the surface

Tension creates a vortex until the pipe breaks thru

Glass is now starting to adhere to the red hot end of the pipe

Keep it turning, twice around

Heat evaporates the sweat from the hand almost instantly

Face is immediately flushed

Blast from the furnace fills the lungs with hot oxygen deprived air

Hand closest to the liquid fireball is yelling at the brain

Get away from here

Brain says, just a few more seconds

Hand is saying, please hurry

Keep it level, keep it turning

Hold it above the surface

Let the gather and the furnace part ways

Dip the cool end down slightly

No stringer this time

Success, for step one

The gallery cheers for each successful new step

Each step is a small one

Some days we go backwards

Watch the others and perhaps your step forward will be bigger

If you are the first then they will watch you fail and perhaps you all learn

One small mistake and you hear the words, "your done"

The fateful trip to the recycling bin can happen at any moment

Then you wait for your next turn

Failure is inevitable as we are but beginners

Success is very sweet