Ceramic Dragon Incense Burner

A squat ceramic burner in mottled green, a dragon rising from the lid.

Lift the lid and the bowl takes a coil or a stick. Set it back and the smoke has only the pierced clouds and the dragon's open mouth to leave by, so it comes out slowly, in a thread. The dragon in feng shui is the creature of the east and of spring, of ambition and momentum, and a dragon that breathes smoke is an old conceit in Chinese censers, a nod to the rain it was said to bring. The body is glazed a deep green flecked with blue, the lid a gunmetal grey, and the two meet at a copper red rim.

It belongs on a tea table or a desk, lit at the end of the day when the work is put away.