Poem: A Place Even You Can Begin

The boat looks raw and rugged.
The cedar planks are shriveled and dry.
A few are missing
and there are gaps where rope caulking once held off the sea.

But the bones are good.
The lines are strong and you can see
how it once drove Viking-like through the water.
The image of its strength feels less like history
than promise, worthy of the effort
to bring its bones back to life, Ezekiel-like.

But worth has little sway over fact,
over which broken hill is restored and which lies fallow
to die.

It is whim and whimsey, desire and which mad dream
plays well with ours that decides the fate of the broken,
who deserves to heal and who does not,
ignoring the truth: All are worthy,
even if few are chosen.

Your hands rub the worn lapstrake.
All are worthy, but this one craft is here,
close at hand,
possible, touchable,
a place even you, broken and flawed, can begin.

About This Poem

Sometimes the wounded are the best healers. A lesson long in learning (for me, anyway.)

If you don’t know the bible story of Ezekiel and the Valley of dry bones, you can read about it here.

The picture was taken at Mystic Seaport.

Tom