Peter

This life’s a sea.  A man must build his craft
as best he can to run across the waves;
must caulk the seams and seal it fore and aft,
and know it’s something else again that saves;
must know himself as truly as his draft,
and know he rides upon men’s open graves.

I thought I knew my task upon the seas,
that there was peace of mind in simple rules.
Cast off the lines: We work here as we please;
the good fish fill our nets in shoals and schools.
I laughed at storms who’d barely felt the breeze,
and did not know that all young men are fools

until I left my nets, just for a time—
except when he decided to set sail—
to walk the dusty roads and sometimes climb
the heights that made sea-level life seem pale.
He tacked, though, from the dregs to the sublime:
He had a job to do and would not fail.

And I knew what that meant: work to be done.
Give me my task and let me try my hand—
but there was nothing gained and nothing won
by any count I knew of, sea or land.
Yet there were things—“This is my well loved son”—
that moved me, though I could not understand.

It was enough: I could not leave his side,
though nine words out of ten were mysteries,
but swore to follow him on any tide.
I never could have reckoned on the seas
he took us on, that shook us ‘til we cried,
or all the times they’d bring me to my knees.

And still I tried to stand, or even walk,
no matter how the seas around us raged.
I stepped out one time as the stormwinds rocked
our boat—a war the waves and weather waged—
for he was there.  I went, but then I balked,
awash in fears that would not be assuaged.

But it was then I knew him, it was then,
as he stood steady on the heaving swell,
I finally understood what he had meant,
that faith could move a mountain.  I could tell
he would not let me drown.  I’d failed, but then
I called the mountain and the mountain fell.

So bending down, he took and lifted me,
as if my doubt and failure were no sin,
or as if such things could forgiven be.
We reached the waiting boat and we climbed in.
And I don’t bother, now, to walk the sea;
I fail, he lifts me up, and I begin.

Saint Peter sinking on water by Eero Järnefelt (1892) Altar piece of Taulumäki Church in Jyväskylä, Finland – Photograph by Antti Leppänen, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27315372