The Weight of Water
a free verse poem for Climacteric: On the Turning Point
Because I am a woman, I knew that I would never be prepared for [men’s] adventures. I would never man the ship to find the undiscovered waterway, the unknown continent. But, there are ways, I insisted, through which even a woman can explore the world…
I came to Pablo Neruda not to hear his poems, nor gather his wisdom, but to follow him when he was lost, to accompany him when he was drowning, and to listen whenever he was mute…I followed Pablo Neruda down under the sea a sondar the continent of my own silence among the precipitous fathoms of the desconocido.
— Deena Metzger, “Exploring with Neruda,” from Ruin and Beauty
I don’t know how to say goodbye
to a glacier.
Or how to hold the weight of water.
I’m afraid I’ll be buried under
seashells of embarrassment for wanting
to become a traveler
of the unmolested.
I want to repair the old wood schooners
of murder and ride into the dark sea
of Alabama soil and burn old sepia photographs
as a ceremonial ritual to revive the lost
limbs of Africa.
