Dear Reader,
The other day I took a stab at writing a prose poem, those clever little mutants bred to sound like poetry and read like prose. I was captured by the image of a boat docked in the harbor and the inherent sense of longing present in the scene.
We often find ourselves longing for that which is out of reach, stretching to grasp contentment in all of its elusive glory. In each of us, there is discontentment, a dissatisfaction with life that none of us can explain or put into words. But there is also a fear, the fear that comes with leaving behind all we find familiar. The ever-present notion that complacency is better than risk.
My poem Longing attempts to capture these conflicting feelings and put them into words, hopefully providing solace to both the poet and the reader. Writing this poem was a helpful exercise in confronting those feelings. I hope reading them does the same for you.
Enjoy!
LONGING
I feel like a boat in harbor who knows all too well that he was made for sea. I have no anchor, nothing to tether me to shore. I’m here in harbor because the sea scares me, and fear is heavier than any anchor and stronger than any tide. It pulls you in and under, running you aground, stripping you of your dignity, your ability to float. Sure, you still look the part. You still know the taste of the wind, but you no longer long for the sea like you used to. You’ve gotten too used to the bay. You no longer miss the crashing waves. You’ve grown too used to the steady rocking of normalcy, the comforting buffeting caressing your bow, saying, stay dont leave, harbors make for better homes. But, now, here, with the ocean blue at my back, I long again for the rhythm of the waves, the unpredictable percussion of uncertainty, to feel again the wind in my sails and the grip of terror that sends your insides into free fall. You see, port is an illusion, a useful fiction conjured up to keep us bound to shore. But what would happen if we let these land-locked legs run, pushing out to open sea with only the current to guide them? Maybe then we’d know true freedom and, for the first time, see ourselves as we were meant to be—boats courting unfamiliar waters, seeking nothing but skyline and destiny.