Old Pitcher

Yesterday we threw away the pitcher
you gave me 40 years ago, a token.
We had used it to store kitchen utensils, wooden and plastic.
Chipped and gouged and cracked, it was unsteady
on its base, aging badly.
That pitcher was thrown and fired
on a northern Wisconsin farm where
you lived that summer to begin
the long draw away from your family, from me.
When I visited that fall we walked in the stubbly fields,
came upon a group of sand hill cranes,
drank ginseng tea.
That night we placed our sleeping bags
not far from your roaring kiln
and on our backs head to head
we watched the height of the Orionids meteor shower
and named the shooting stars.
40 years ago in northern Wisconsin the nights
were full and black, less contaminated by city lights.
The sky that night was at arms length,
the stars were right there.
In the morning when I left, you gave me the pitcher
that yesterday we threw away.
But this is no ode on a Wisconsin pot.
That was yesterday and now it is today.
Someday 40 years will pass and who
will write then about how beautiful you were,
how beautiful I was
40 years ago, now?