My Ship Does Not Wander
My ship wanders…
Oceans, deserts, skies, a thousand forests I have
Memorized and forgotten, cracks upon my palms that do not wash off…
My ship does not wander, for my compass is you
And every turn of my hips
Bend of the knee
Sweeping look across the room
Every direction is north, every course is corrected
Before it can even be thought
How can I not find you?
I cannot find you while I am looking
While I am not looking I have you
But I cannot find you
This love is for the strongest of us, I’m sure of it
No religion, science, or politics can sign off on it
I have seen myself in my dreams like a shapeshifter
With every face I’ve ever known
What I do not recognize, what the shadows mirror
And for a moment when the sun hangs low
And the forest is alight in golden timeless time
With orange, flaming streaks of green
And the city in the distance glows white, noble and dignified
Just long enough for some celestial hand
To place another clue in my mind
It fastens to me the tapestry of my soul’s mission
More concrete than the grief of all my mothers
Seven generations back
So many lifetimes I left you, and will leave you again
More concrete than all the parting of the ways
For this mystic wind reeks of the gods
And I walk among them in a simple ship of tooth and nail and claw
And even if I should stray far from their towers in the west
Still in my mind I am ever at home with them
Even in the blackest night I do not wander
Even in the thickest forests of skyscrapers and suburbs
My ship cannot not wander
My compass is true and my steps and curving arms
Pull and tug and turn and wheel
Upon the fabric of the universe
Bringing it back upon me, I weave myself into you
Oh mystic everything
Here I am shouting in my mind again, silent
I am here moving without moving
A bubble wafting across the quantum foam
Reverse engineering the cosmology of cosmology
With only a bag of emotions, a wheel of light
Flashing signs pour from the peerless dimension above
Mercy? Empathy? Salvation?
The water-bearer
She opens the way, the way opens
No agenda, justice of mind
I am here, always
May the way open
May the way open
May the way open