This is a church of no denomination
where flat pew seats face each other
instead of a nondescript altar
and communicants receive a different grace.

Slightly bob your head an inch or two
till you feel it in your shoulders.
Swing your torso slightly. Pull your left oar first,
then your right. Dip your paddles.

Learn to reach and pull and stretch
in and out of water
until the beauty and the effort
leaves you breathless.

At a moment of your choosing
draw the oars across the gunwales
to flow on your momentum and the tide.

A calm horizon spreads across the Eastern way.
Whitecaps sparkling in the distance reflects the low sun
that stands so cool above the dark green hemlock.
Away to your back lie miles and miles of endless water.

You are a simple boat surrounded by extraordinary marriages
of vast and unlike things.
Sky flowing into Water.
Water bumping against the Earth.
Earth cradling all the Sky.

To reach this necessary place
requires no word of faith
just an urgent need within
to bob and row.

Patricia Kennedy from Gig Harbor, Washington, has published poems in online journals, regional print anthologies, a chapbook, Gods & Goddesses, (2013), and at the Washington State History Museum. She writes with the encouragement of the Pot Luck Poets and other friends. She is the coordinator of the Gig Harbor Library’s Poetry Series, a six-year endeavor that has brought together some of the finest poetic voices in the Pacific Northwest for free public workshops and readings.