First Lesson
Philip Booth
Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's-float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
1 comment:
This was a poem I'd skimmed past for a year or more. I finally read it, or maybe I'd read it before but it finally spoke -- speaking to me now, anyway. Another for the collection... It's wonderful how different poems have begun to rise up in my memory from different points of my life... This is a good collection -- the poems that fed me, one at a time, for however many months at a time.
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