Great Boat

We live in the hold of a great boat
moving through the stars

There are no windows in this boat
and it is all window

The rudder’s held fast by a
force we can’t imagine

The bow’s pointed to a
place we’ll never know

The high sea and the high air
we breathe are all the same

It is night and navigation is by
celestial lights

There’s nothing of earth on this
boat but a few medicinal plants

It may be Noah’s Ark with its
genetic doubles

Can you feel it gently rocking?
It’s never still

Out the window that is not a window
are the woods the unearthly woods

The deep darkness of the woods
is the deep darkness of the heavens

Our hearts are solar flares
born in the deep darkness

It is not silent here
and the waves are song

A face where the moon should be
looks down and smiles

The whole cosmological realm
is like this smile

The boat is moving in all directions
and goes nowhere

Everyone we will ever love
is on this boat

Where have you heard of this boat before
if not in your heart?

It never lands because
there’s never land in sight

God’s motions are its motions
and His will its way

Finally we can say
it’s all a matter of starlight

Homelessness is its home
and its watery shelter

The Captain never sleeps
in His Divine Absence

If His Presence were any more Present
it would shatter us

The window that we look out
is the window that we see

What we see is the
window we look through to see it

It’s not ours
but God’s alone

Who owns it

---

8/4/2009 (from Stretched Out on Amethysts)

Categories: Poems