POEM: WEIGH ANCHOR

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

Weigh Anchor

 

 

it's moving

on time, the skies are clear

the tattered sails are mended, those same

sails which would not, or so it seemed,

carry us any further, your look

in the car outside the park

after the interview on the radio, my

weary weight sagging into the passenger

seat beside you, head thrown all the way back,

eyes closed and nobody, not even you, knowing

where i was at that moment, there was a hole

in me below the water line, i had to stop

to repair and though you rode proudly

high in the water your rudder was gone

 

this bay

of us shown nowhere on our maps

suddenly found on our transitional coast, we look

up and see we, you plug holes, i fix rudder,

and when we are through what do we do,

linger, no, this is harbor but not home,

what we have shared it is now time to leave

we weigh emotional anchors and set sail

each to another place that the other

is not going

 

—kalamu ya salaam