Sea of Galilee

I wrote this for a poetry class last spring.
Revised 4.29.06

It's a sestina -
a very structured poem in which each line must end with one of six words in a particular order. There's an interesting relationship in general between degrees of a poem's structural rigidity and the available channels of expression.

Sea of Galilee

I want to walk on water,
no longer because it would be cool,
but because I want to feel
sustained in the kind of trust
it takes to step out on something
that by any other means, would drown you.

I imagine that like me, you
are also drawn to the water,
and it’s difficult to think that something
can consume so quickly which, lipped-cool,
licks the hands and feet. We trust
the darkened sea because it feels
so calm. Taking a step, the sole feels
tension - finds surface tension soothing – but you
don’t expect it to hold. In fact, you trust
the surface to split and sink, water
admitting, surrounding, stroking cool
the legs with gentle pressure. It’s something
worth repeating. Worth repeating: Something
grabs ahold of you in the water. You can feel
it pulling, gentle at first, the cool
becomes colder and you
want to get out of the water,
but its licking away at your skin. Trust
that the waves won’t support you. Trust
can’t be summoned – it must arrive. It’s something
both present and longed for. Water
is hungry. It draws you in. You feel
the thirst, and following, you
may be consumed and quenched by the cool
blue. It’s the edge of the ledge we walk, trying to keep our cool.

And I want to step beyond, I want that Trust -
that calm of walking, and I know you
also want to walk on something
that is real. Something you can feel
to hold you up above the water.
It’s not about cool. It’s about wanting something
you can Trust, longing for the feel
of something solid you don’t get from water.