Blessing the Boats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2000

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Boats

Boats transport bodies and cargo over water, often used in poetry as symbols for the body, which carries the soul through the world. In this way, the boat metaphor implies that the body is transient, while the soul is a temporary passenger. In “blessing the boats” Clifton says the “tide” (Line 1) is coming over the “lip of our understanding” (Line 3). This makes the boat a metaphor for not just the body but the mind. It is implied that the “you” (Line 4) who rides inside the boat is beyond the mind and body - the soul. The boat is only what carries it.

Water

Water suggests tears, fluidity, cleanliness, mystery, and/or uncertainty. The speaker does not specify if these boats are on the ocean or on fresh water. She does not specify exactly where they are going. This ambiguity may very well be the point. Addressing an illness, changes in life, aging, and mortality is itself an experience of facing the unknown. In this instance she adds, “water waving forever” (Line 11). This further enhances the feeling that the water is something eternal and eternally shifting. It seems to personify the water as friendly, almost greeting and welcoming “you” as “you” enters it. It is perhaps intentional that the speaker leaves this “water” (Line 11) somewhat ambiguous.

Wind and Tides

The poem opens with “the tide / that is entering even now/ the lip of our understanding” (Lines 1-3). Tide is associated with time. It comes in at a certain time and goes out at a certain time. It is a natural force by which people, especially nautical navigators, govern their activities. Although those who sail the seas find it important, it is not something human beings can control. The reference to a tide that “even now” (Line 2) is already in the process of pulling the boat out to sea, suggests that this is a situation which is inevitable, governed by external cosmic forces. The boat cannot help but be pulled by the tide, and that tide is going to have its way with the boat no matter what the speaker does. Wind, likewise, is essential to moving a boat. Sailors depend on it but can only control the wind to the extent that they can harness it with sails. Rather than fighting the tide and the wind, the speaker suggests that she must surrender to it. She must “kiss/ the wind” (Lines 6-7) and then trust it to “love [her] back” (Line 9). The tide and wind may suggest either cancer in particular, or old age, illness, and mortality in general. It is a symbol for any natural, overwhelming force that can swiftly change a person’s life and which will cause their “boat” to change location.