To write a poem is to make connections.
Connections to a place called home,
A home you do not recognize under pain,
Pain you did not know resided there.
There, there, you hear an
inner voice soothe,
Air smoothing your brow to ease a
frown.
Frowns seen from inside poems have
weights
Waiting on their fragile ends, to
change
And charge language: query becomes
discovery.
Discovery comes by turning over rocks.
But rocking the boat is another way of
seeing.
See where you can go inside this
sea-bound form.
Form in verse, which you believed was
so restrictive,
Restricts only the mind’s confusion. If
your search
Searches just outside the boat, you
never know
What’s to know, what is found inside of
shape.
You make four rocking motions on your
back:
Back, forth
Forth, back.
From back here, sky balances on the
boat’s walls.
Walls frame the open heaven, defining
edges
Teaches you boundaries can be touched.
Now touch the bottom of the boat,
Floating you above dark water. Eyes to
sky,
Sky begins connecting worlds. Hands on
horizon’s rim,
Rim the sides of the boat with both
hands,
Then hand yourself to water out of reach
below,
Below the line of sight,
Beyond
this site called home.
Janice Dabney