XXXIII
BOAT

Only the cross supports you, the trunk
to which you are bound, a dead tree
without roots, without leaves or fruit,
a raft rocked by the random changes
in the infinite motion of earth and sky,
the holy wood on which the soul floats,
caught between the two eternities.
Asleep on the sea under the light—darkness—
its sturdy headboard rocks
like the prow of a ship; a luminous
trail of foam rises and falls—stars—
and the waves wash over its arms
where souls who bemoan their sorrows
go to take shelter. And spread out
above it is the other sea, the sea of sky,
black and unfathomable and endless,
and there, where the two seas meet,
where all that lives resides: the Sun!