Castles and Coprolites

Shall I compare thee to a pot of clay? Perhaps organic or sand tempered. Your form and fabric over time decay, Contact with water rehydroxylates. Sometimes too hot the flame of kiln shines, And often is the vessel warped and curved; And every pot from pot sometime declines, By chance, or taphonomic paths, preserved; But thy lipid presence shall not fade, The use of pottery for food can be assessed, Petrography perhaps reveals how you were made, Control of fire temporally progressed. The wonders of ceramic technology, Shift from PPN to PN prehistory.

I wandered lonely in the lab, Amongst the tubes, clearing the spills When all at once I saw a bag Of broken sherds amongst the drills Beside the bench, beneath the shelves I guess they won’t extract themselves.           Continuous as the gas that flows, And dries the samples in their vials, Wherefore these sherds appear who knows? It’s like a never-ending trial: Ten thousand Grooved Ware at a glance, Am I caught in a bad romance? From postholes, pits and avenue From middens, house floors, slots of beams, There’re always more postsherds to do: Grit tempered vessels haunt my dreams. I gazed - and gazed - with little thought What wealth the sherds to me had brought For now, whilst at the bench I stand, Clad in white coat, with pensive stare, It all makes sense, I understand! I like you lots, most Grooved of Ware And now my heart with pleasure fills The sherds my friends, my secret thrills. ...