Produced and posted by The Alchemist’s Studio, http://rakupottery.ca/2019/01/08/name-that-vase/ with request for naming and writings.

The inspiration for naming your #44 comes from its immediate ability to draw me back to Tanzania where i experienced Lake Natron, a mineral-rich soda lake which sits below the ‘Mountain of God’, Ol Dionyo Lengai, an active volcano that spews a dark silvery carbonatite ‘cold’ lava at 500-550 celsius.
Your vase reminds me of the colors, textures and unlikely combination of life and death at this lake. The story is real but your vase is the mythical symbolization, Natronia, to me!

Natronia

Oh ‘Golden’ one
Think yourself so mighty,
Robbing me of my waters
Running me dry to the bed.

My visiting flamingoes may flee
And the fish eagle saved
As my alkaline petrifying
and volcanic waters vanish.

But perhaps you leave
Behind, my most renown
Beauty of all,
My crystaline core.

Varied hues of ruby
Azure and seagreen,
All mingle and run in and over
My contours, cracks and crevices.

See my form now!
Matched by none,
As I am the one and only
Lake, Lake Natron.

With me you will find
Life and death
On and in me,
Both like nowhere else.

When waters swell
My salts are savored,
My ruby red
Never feared.

Yet with pH high
I cannot help
To immortalize those poor creatures
Who know not what is wise.

I lay witness to mighty God,
Ol Dionya Lengai.
Beauty is my nature
Protect those that come to my shore.

Pictures curtesy of Nick Brandt and Depositphoto.com.