Here is the poem that ran through me with a jolt on the second day of chemo--the images were so powerful, yes, as a stand alone poem. But the extra power of it was that Lucille Clifton was in the English department (my department) at St Mary's College of Maryland (my tiny college) while I was there. She came when I was nearly finished there and so I never took a class from her, but her form and her voice at meetings and walking through the halls fills me with love and connection to a place that was so important for me. This poem in particular is doubly important for me because St Mary's is a place where I started the crew team, so her blessing the boats is in part a blessing for me. Mark didn't know any of that when he printed the poem on thick cream paper and sealed the envelope with a golden circle. But the many layers of relationships in this poem--encircled as they all are by love and by water--swept through me on the (surprisingly easy) second day of chemo.
Lucille Clifton: "Blessing the Boats"
(at St. Mary's)
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back
may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
(Pictures today are from the last visit we took to St Mary's. You can see how long ago that was--maybe a decade.)
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