have a small boat ready he said

perhaps suggesting
test every rope
(oars too)        or

hand over hand
every day
let down the anchor
and catch forty winks

or row
row in the name
of simply messing about . . .
through doldrums
and lightning

and hold close your hope
that the rabbi (who once
closed his eyes in the stern)
promised never
to shift eternity’s gaze
up and aweigh

--
Laurie Klein is the author of a chapbook (Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh) and two collections (House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life and Where the Sky Opens). A recipient of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred and a Pushcart nominee for poetry as well as prose, she lives on the brow of a rural hill overlooking an ancient apple tree and mercurial woodland pond. For the first time in thirty-four years, small green apples festoon the limbs. It feels like a sign . . .