The Sailing Boat Poem by Charlene Lee

If the vessel is shattered, the wood split apart,
Can it be mended—this beat in my heart?
I've spent a lifetime in 'what comes next, '
Dredging the spirits of a long-faded wreck.

Will I forever be tangled in steel?
Pinned by the weight of the things that I feel?
A train off the tracks in a valley of smoke,
Waiting for words that were never quite spoke.

Or is there a shoreline, a change in the breeze?
A boat made of cedar to sail on the seas?
Where the water is steady, the current is kind,
And the wreckage is something I leave far behind.

I'm reaching for 'someday, ' for a breath of the salt,
To prove that the crashing was never my fault.
To feel the wood steady, to feel the world wide,
And finally drift with the pull of the tide.

To look at my hands and to find they are clean,
To be more than the trauma and the things that I've seen.
The pieces are scattered, but the glue is my own—
I am mending a soul that is finally home.