Wind to Catch

You have left the shore. The wind is perfect,
just enough to move you,
not so much whitecaps slow you down.

It is early in the day. The sun shines
but it is not yet warm.
The cool wind forces you to wear long sleeves.

Your grey hair, what is left of it,
ruffles in the breeze
and your eye is towards the horizon.

You have no idea what is there
but you are traveled enough to know that once you are there,
there is another horizon. There is no end of them

until the day you tie up to a shore
and decide “this is enough”
and leave the horizons for someone else.

But you are not there. Not yet.
You unfurl the sails a bit more.
There is wind to catch.

About this poem

This morning my readings took me to the poem “Ulysses” by Alfred Loyd Tennyson. I first read that poem at age 15 as part of a reading aloud competition. I fell in love with its defiant tone, and it has reappeared at pivotal points in my life again and again.

In the Christian liturgical calendar, last Sunday was Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit came into a room full of disciples like “a great and violent wind” and alighted on the disciples like tongues of flame, inspiring this small band who had been broken and afraid and sure they were done. And just like that, they became something new and powerful and set about changing the world of faith.

The painting is by Lyonel Feininger, Silent Day at the Sea. 1929. Another thing that fell into my feeds this morning as I got ready to start my day. Sometimes things come together, even when you aren’t feeling it.

So, a poem about how we can choose to age, about faith. About the holy spirit. About horizons that never cease. About my own histories and present and futures. Poetry is never about one thing.

Never stop.

Tom