If a boat on water
asked the water to be still,
that's the nature of my want.
You wash over me in gusts.
Few things can be held in hand,
fewer than the mind.
And the heart, holder
of innumerable devotions,
has no compass, only scale
to overcome the soul's
indifference. The eyes are doors
but otherwise are useless.
There are many ways
to navigate, to be misled.
So I will be restless.
No, I will be still.
From The Needle by Jennifer Grotz. Copyright 2011 by Jennifer Grotz. Excerpted by permission of the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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