The Glassblower , Images from Waterford crystal and a Poem By : Jeff Crandall
Waterford Crystal Glass blower
Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Glassblower
By : Jeff Crandall
This vessel has curves
pleasing to the eye, a soft lip,
a flat foot to rest on. I want to cup my palms
over the glowing color of its cooling,
but later. . . .
Now my eye is caught in the heat
of its final fire polish.
What dripped from the pipe
—radiant, thick as semen—
achieves fulfillment in the motions
of my own turning.
The amorphous, the malleable
awakens. There is a taste to the air here.
Steel. Iron in your mouth.
What formed at the glory hole
delicate as an adolescent
reflection in a mirror
cools in the first few minutes from that heat,
cools to the rigid shatter state.
If I hold this glass
suspended in the lit gas heat
I can watch it slump. I can let the thin walls
collapse and tear
back to a puddle of clear:
I wipe saliva from my chin.
I anneal myself with hugs.
I contain the polarized stresses.
I return to the cold of the holding shelf.
The To-be-forgotten By Thomas Hardy
The To-be-forgotten
By Thomas Hardy
.
I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are you distrest,
Now, screened from life’s unrest?”
II
—”O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!
III
“These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV
“They count as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.
V
“We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say
We hold in some soul loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
“But what has been will be —
First memory, then oblivion’s swallowing sea;
Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
Whose story no one knows.
VII
“For which of us could hope
To show in life that world-awakening scope
Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
But all men magnify?
VIII
“We were but Fortune’s sport;
Things true, things lovely, things of good report
We neither shunned nor sought … We see our bourne,
And seeing it we mourn.”
Waterford Crystal
Waterford Crystal Craftsman at work : Nigel Borrington
Waterford Crystal.
Waterford Crystal Limited was, until March 2009, a subsidiary of Waterford Wedgwood plc, itself formed through the acquisition by the then Waterford Glass Group of the famous pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood in 1986. The last chairman was Tony O’Reilly, and the CEO John Foley. The leading shareholders of the holding company were former billionaire O’Reilly and his family, joined in the last decade by O’Reilly’s brother-in-law, Greek shipping heir Peter Goulandris. Waterford Wedgwood was forced into receivership in early 2009. On 5 January 2009, news of the receivership of Waterford Wedgwood Ltd.
Nigel Borrington 
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