Tina Symko responded immediately to my Facebook call for poems, with this. (I can’t tell you how it delights me to have random voice memos of recorded poems dropped in my email, voicemail or Facebook. So thank you to Tina, and to any of you taking up this invitation.)

Here are a few things I learned about the poet, Lucille Clifton, when I went searching (via https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton) – “A prolific and widely respected poet, Lucille Clifton’s work emphasizes endurance and strength through adversity, focusing particularly on African-American experience and family life. Clifton is noted for saying much with few words. In a Christian Century review of Clifton’s work, Peggy Rosenthal wrote, ‘The first thing that strikes us about Lucille Clifton’s poetry is what is missing: capitalization, punctuation, long and plentiful lines. We see a poetry so pared down that its spaces take on substance, become a shaping presence as much as the words themselves.’ Her ‘physically small poems with enormous and profound inner worlds’ led her to be twice nominated for the Pulitzer prize for poetry. When asked how she would like to be remembered, Clifton said, ‘I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human. My inclination is to try to help.'”

I asked Tina if she wanted to share any context about the poem or how it spoke to her. This is what she offered. ❤

I think the poem speaks to me about death. I lost both my dad and my mom to illness. Experiencing their suffering was the most difficult thing I’ve gone through in my entire life. This poem speaks to me about a softer transition from life to death. Being carried on the tide, carried softly by the waves. “beyond the face of fear”. This is the line. I was so worried about my mom and dad being scared of dying, it consumed me. I didn’t ever want them to feel afraid. I wanted them to die innocently, with faith, without fear – just gently “sail through this to that”. Without pain, without fear. A safe, peaceful and gentle passage.

Tina Symko

blessing the boats

Lucille Clifton 1936 – 2010

(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

From Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 by Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 2001 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with permission of BOA Editions Ltd. All rights reserved.