Mortar and Pedestal

 

Life
can be like a mortar and pestal,
grinding at the smallest grains

making them ever smaller.

Little lumps pop up

out of the congregation

only to be hammered

harder with the pestal;

ground ever smaller

against the walls

of the mortar bowl,

into powdery dust;

indistinguishable

one from the other;

just a gray mass

of lifeless powder.
               -Joy S. Barefoot