How she goes
And after all
how goes she forward
when the wind blows in our face?
Forces like clasping hands converge,
Mark says – sail pushed sideways,
keel resisting
(braced by liquid tonnage)
the outcome:
as wet soap squeezed in the hand
squirts forward…
And so we roll on
time and tide and wind against us
over wave after wave after wave;
we go on
breathing
though every breath drives us back
and who does not awake
from time to time in broad daylight
among on-coming fellow citizens,
feel the pressure,
and then himself leaping
forward and free?
*Andrew Greig has published eight collections of poetry, most of these with Bloodaxe, including The Order of the Day (Poetry Book Society Choice), This Life, This Life: New & Selected Poems 1970-2006 and now As Though We Were Flying (2011). His six novels include In Another Light (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), which was Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. He lives in Edinburgh and Orkney with his wife, novelist Lesley Glaister.
How she goes is from sequence in progress, Found At Sea.