Poems, 1957–1967

WALKING ON WATER

WALKING ON WATER Feeling it with me On it, barely float, the narrow plank on the water, I stepped from the clam-shell beach, Breaking in nearly down through the sun Where it lay on the sea, And poled off, gliding upright Onto the shining topsoil of the bay. Later, it came to be said That I was seen walking on water, Not moving my legs Except for the wrong step of sliding: A child who leaned on a staff, A curiouspilgrim hiking Between two open blue worlds, My motion a miracle, Leaving behind me no footprint, But only the shimmering place Of an infinite step upon water In which sat still and were shining Many marsh-birds and pelicans. Alongside my feet, the shark Lay buried and followed, His eyes on my childish heels. Thus, taking all morning to stalk From one littered beach to another, I came out on land, and dismounted, Making marks in the sand with my toes Which truly had walked there, on water, With the pelicans beating their shadows Through the mirror carpet Down, and the shark pursuing The boy on the burning deck Into the Stone 3 9 Of a bare single ship-wrecked board. Shoving the plank out to sea, I walked Inland, on numb sparkling feet, With the sun on the sea unbroken, Nor the long quiet step of the miracle Doing anything behind me but blazing, With the birds in it nodding their heads, That must ponder that footstep forever, Rocking, or until I return In my ghost, which shall have become, then, A boy with a staff, To loose them, beak and feather, from the spell Laid down by a balancing child, Unstable, tight-lipped, and amazed, And, under their place of enthrallment, A huge, hammer-headed spirit Shall pass, as if led by the nose into Heaven. to ...