into Water

into Water    

           

To measure the split between the tip and the thrift

            of sitting still again at last, first anchor one foot

            then the other, and then to stand

            on the floor of the boat:  between the feet

            and the water it's the letting go enough to atone

            the stretch, the shoulder-length spread

            of the feet, narrower at the knees

            and the born beam of wood.  It's only when, 

            after a long hard affair, and then being thrown,

            and those scabs exposed as to a jury, he carried the canoe,

            through the alders and scrub cedar, stone

            scratched and veined.  It would be his Jesus…

His head feels the heat of the hand hovering above

            his hair.  He is a poxed man.  A leper.  Raw,  

            he decays to a mange.  When boats are not enough.

            When winter is too warm or spring too short,

            when women look at him the way they might

            the lieutenant of their sons in trenches, as though 

            that other boat

            were a gun, a bayonet, as though they were sheep 

            gathered and corralled, as though this now

            is the season for the bleatless heat. 

He sways.  Steadies.  Puts in.  Sits.  Pushes off from the grass.

            Dips the paddle.  Pulls the water.  Lifts, lowers.

            Pulls the water. Each stroke is the farther from the bank,

            is the shedding of a coat, a pair of pants, a loose dirty

            shirt.  Naked, he is pond.  He is baptism.  Clear as mirrors.

            He looks, though, straight ahead.  Straight ahead

            testing the depth of the water.  Every time he arrives

            here it’s the same.  Straight ahead.  Alone.  The cut

            of the paddle effortless, the pull of it toward, the push

            of it away all strain, the same red blood as that man

            in Gethsemane.  The same cup tipped toward pouring.