“Against Hesitation,” by Charles Rafferty

If you stare at it long enough

the mountain becomes unclimbable.

Tally it up. How much time have you spent

waiting for the soup to cool?

Icicles hang from January gutters

only as long as they can. Fingers pause

above piano keys for the chord

that will not form. Slam them down

I say. Make music of what you can.

Some people stop at the wrong corner

and waste a dozen years hoping

for directions. I can’t be them.

Tell every girl I’ve ever known

I’m coming to break her door down,

that my teeth will clench

the simple flower I only knew

not to give … Ah, how long did I stand

beneath the eaves believing the storm

would stop? It never did.

And there is lightning in me still

“Thalassa,” Louis MacNeice

Run out the boat, my broken comrades;

Let the old seaweed crack, the surge

Burgeon oblivious of the last

Embarkation of feckless men,

Let every adverse force converge–

Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades;

Let each horizon tilt and lurch–

You know the worst: your wills are fickle,

Your values blurred, your hearts impure

And your past life a ruined church–

But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,

Whose record shall be noble yet;

Butting through scarps of moving marble

The narwhal dares us to be free;

By a high star our course is set,

Our end is Life. Put out to sea.

My Job

Reflections on Ethnographic Research in Dhofar Oman

A good poem for hard times – “Atlas” by U. A. Fanthorpe

Antigone and Ismene – Making Difficult Choices

Two poems about nature and rest: “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry and “Sleeping in The Forest,” Mary Oliver