The ceramic sculpture

Brother Akimitsu walked slowly down past the monastery vegetable garden and through the zelkova trees to the swampy ground beyond.

At twilight the swallows hawked over the area catching the tiny insects that rose from the marsh. The birds swooped and dived and jinked and swirled over the small swamp, perhaps thirty of them.

Unafraid they were. They would fly an arm’s length from Brother Akimitsu’s head – untouchable, free, independent, incorruptible, perfect – their scintillant blue darkening in the twilight, all the life and electric energy of the cosmos manifest in their tiny, fragile bodies.

Brother Akimitsu drew his robe tighter around his thin shoulders. He stood there transfixed with love until the tears began to drip off his chin. Then he bowed to his tiny brothers and sisters and made his way back to his studio.

The piece he was working on had come to him in a dream – he had seen it unfired and unglazed but otherwise complete. This was not unusual these days – the waking world and the world of dreams and the world beyond the world of dreams were beginning to merge.

His studio was just a small garden shed that the abbot had allowed him to use. The kiln was small and sometimes he fired things in sections and cleverly fitted them together afterwards.

He had already constructed the base of the piece – the form of an open book, tilted slightly as if it sat on someone’s knees. Now he must shape the little sparrow that would perch on the edge of the book as if it were about to peck up the words like seeds of wisdom, draw their sustenance into its tiny frame. The colours and glaze would be not entirely lifelike but would suggest the gentle greys and browns of a real sparrow.

Once it was finished, one of the younger monks would upload photos to the usual sites – he could do it himself but he preferred to avoid some parts of the world if he could – and it would quickly fly away to some rich collector.

Brother Akimitsu’s gnarled old fingers, knuckles swollen with age, worked the clay – kneading and teasing and shaping, moving like the roots of some old tree through the clay, turning it to his purpose.

He could stay a little longer but soon his brothers would lower his body into his anonymous grave. His fingers would again intertwine with clay, and the roots would weave clay and potter together into one substance.

Dhiraja