I Wrote You a Poem
/You
When the ship capsizes
And the water is too cold and too much
And fills my lungs
I will try
To be buoyant enough
That you can hold onto my corpse
And survive
When the ground shakes
And yanks out the foundation
Pulling every beam askew
And the ceiling surrenders to its weight
And proves my skull’s fragility
I will try
To land sideways
So you can wedge yourself
In the width of my shoulders
And survive
When the brakes go out
On the city bus
And the wide white crosswalk lines
Offer no protection
I may let go of your hand briefly
And my slow wit
That can never invent the punchline in time
Will fail to alert my limbs
Thus discovering the last joke but
I will try
To be soft
And absorb
So you can rebound
And survive
When the blizzard
Of all the little cold, furious, buzzing
Distractions I employ to hide
From myself
Melt away
And my need to be the hero
And the center of the storm
Resolves into a man-shaped
Soggy pile of drowned, buried, flattened, unread books
No hero, not much of a poet, sometimes barely a person, not much, but
I will try
To say, “I love you
“I believe in you
“I do this for you
“For you
“You.”
And I will try
To lift you
To hurt with you
To hold you
So you can smile
And survive
Tonight I got a chance to go see one of my favorite poets, Bethany Lee, sing and play her harp to accompany Kim Stafford, the Oregon poet laureate. Mr. Stafford assigned us all to write poems. “A ‘great poem,’” he said, “is something we put in an anthology and force high school students to analyze. An important poem is one you give to someone that speaks to them in their time of need.” Bethany Lee is the person who taught me, many years ago, that I am allowed to write in church as an act of worship, and though I don’t know who to worship anymore, I will always be grateful to her for teaching me to give myself permission to enter that state of worship in my preferred way. So, while Stafford read his wonderful poetry and Bethany played her harp, I jotted down some notes, and they became this poem. It’s still a draft, of course. If you have suggestions, I would love to hear them. More importantly, I hope this is discovered by someone who needs to hear they are loved. I may not be much, but I can offer that, and I hope it helps someone.