Steady, Steady
I believe you can build a boat.
I believe you can get to water.
I do not believe you can get the boat on water.
How do other people bear
what you are still afraid of? The answer
is that when big things happen
you do go through the looking glass,
but it is still you who goes through,
the inner text is all still right to left,
so you just keep reading.
Because there is no boat and there is no water.
I stare at my tiny baby's face
but he so wriggles he can't quite be seen.
He grows steadier, more the blur
is gone; joins us in the myth of the stable.
Of the quakiness of infancy and old age
we shimmer and shimmy into being
and out again. In the mean-
time, we're horses in the stable of the myth.
A quick check of the ocean, or any fire,
is a reminder of how things seem;
I can't seem to see them.
You’re on the beach and you find out the secretary
of defense thinks calico cats are agents of the devil.
Your friend asks if they get 10 percent.
She was funny, your friend.
The water in this metaphor
is unreal because of the way time passes,
so you can't quite get the boat on water,
but you can build the boat,
and a boat is good for a lot of things
not just on water.
Will we, without the boat on water,
always feel that we are missing
something basic to the picture?
No. That is what I'm trying to say.
It is important to let sense quiver;
even in this stable of the myth of stable,
even living aboard a boat mired
in mud in view of the sea.
Who wants yet another world?
It's enough already.
Copyright Credit: Jennifer Michael Hecht, "Steady, Steady" from Who Said. Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Source: Who Said (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)