That Boat In You Poem by RIC BASTASA

when love was an order
i followed it
it becomes a law
i am obliged

courtship, marriage
fidelity,
compassion, sticking with time
through and through
getting wet and getting dry
sleeping and waking up
and moving

you build a house
feel a home
go somewhere and
contemplate

changes of frames of mind from
time to time
wishing as if
as though, as if i could have been someone
else
or it could have been otherwise

summing it up,
you are still there
like a foot
inside the same old shoe

you are a tree
a very old tree
you claim you have tasted the world
residing on the same spot
till rotten
till cut and chopped
till what is left in you
is just
the firewood

love is freedom
be it unrequited
love is redeeming
despite the pain
and love is pain
despite the joy
circle, circle,
circumnavigate till
you sail back
to where you were first
built and
tasted the first
salty water
on that very same port
where every plank
of you
shatters.