Blessing the Boats

Like many of Clifton’s poems, “blessing the boats” is short but dense. It relies on metaphors, and each metaphor may have several nuanced interpretations. Beginning with the title “blessing the boats”, the speaker sets up an immediate intention. The poem is about blessing, but it is not totally clear what the boats are. She uses boats in the plural. The poem moves on to use the pronoun “our” (Line 3) and “you” (Line 4) rather than “I.” Clifton is drawing a circle that encompasses multiple people, including herself, the reader, and perhaps others who are not specifically named. This makes the “blessing” available to everyone who reads it and not to anyone in particular. Next, “boats,” as plural suggests that she is going beyond her own “boat” to encompass multiple boats. Presumably the boats may be a metaphor for the body or for a life. In their most rudimentary form, a boat is a vessel that crosses water and often carries life or lives aboard. It would make sense that in this case the speaker is using “boats” as a metaphor for a body but also for something more than the mere physical form of a person. It is also the mind and the soul as well as the physical vessel that holds them.

When the speaker says, “may the tide/ that is entering even now/ the lip of our understanding” (Lines 1-3) she uses the imagery of a boat leaving shore. The “lip” (Line 3) is another word for the “gunwale” of a boat. When the “tide” (Line 1) “is entering” (Line 2) “the lip of our understanding” (Line 3) it suggests that the boat is going out to sea. The tide is like time, pulling the boat forward across the water. The water itself might be a metaphor for the life experience that comes with time. “Understanding” (Line 3) is the human capacity to absorb information, to carry it the way a boat would carry water. The boat is not just a metaphor for the body, but also the mind. The speaker expresses her desire that this tide “carry you out/ beyond the face of fear” (Lines 4-5) suggesting that time and the passage of time will take the “you” (Line 4) forward, and “you” will no longer feel fear.

The next phrase, “may you kiss/ the wind” (Lines 6-7) expresses a wish that “you” (Line 4) –perhaps the reader–instead of fearing the wind, come to love it. Kissing is a sign of affection. In the next phrase she posits that the “you” (Line 4) of the poem next turn from “the wind” (Line 7) “certain it will / love your back”. (Lines 8-9) To have “the wind at your back” is a phrase that suggests the going will be easy. The wind will push you forward so that it is doing the work, rather than you walking or sailing against the wind. The speaker gives the reader instructions that they need to love the wind first and then they can trust that the wind will “have their back” as it were. She is suggesting a reciprocal relationship between wind and the person on the boat.

The next phrase “may you / open your eyes to water” (Lines 9-10) has multiple implications. To “open your eyes” (Line 10) suggests a realization, coming into awareness of something new. Someone who had their eyes closed was ignoring something or unaware of something. However, “water” (Line 10) has multiple connotations. It suggests fluidity, cleanliness, mystery, uncertainty. The speaker does not specify if these “boats” are on the ocean or on fresh water. She does not specify exactly where they are going. This ambiguity may very well be the point. Addressing an illness, changes in life, aging, and ultimately mortality is itself an experience of facing the unknown. In this instance she adds, “water waving forever” (Line 11). This further enhances the feeling that the water is a metaphor for something eternal and eternally shifting. At the same time, it seems to personify the water as friendly, greeting you by “waving.” It is perhaps intentional that the speaker leaves this “water” (Line 11) somewhat ambiguous.

The last line is also open to multiple interpretations. She writes “and may you in your innocence/ sail through this to that” (Lines 12-13). “This” and “that” are unspecified. They may be literal destinations, but they may also be read as mental and emotional states of being, i.e. from fear to faith. The emphasis is not so much on the destinations themselves but rather the “sail[ing]” (Line 13) between them. Ultimately this is a poem much more about the journey than it is about the place the “you” begins and the place that the “you” ends.

By specifying “in your innocence” (Line 12) the speaker makes the benevolent assumption that the speaker is worthy of this blessing. She calls the “you” innocent but does not specify of what exactly. The word may have many implications. “Innocence” (Line 12) may imply that the speaker is passive. They are not causing any of the disruption to their own lives. It has a biblical connotation. Human beings are innocent until they eat the apple. Babies are innocent. This word suggests the speaker has an attitude of benevolence towards the “you” whoever it may be. Because it is still a little unclear who the speaker is in relationship to the “you” of the poem, it may be that she is expressing a wish that the “you” become innocent, or that whoever controls the weather and the waves of the water treat the “you” as innocent.

Ultimately the poem expresses a wish. A wish can surpass doubts and express a desire or an appeal for something that is not guaranteed. In this case the speaker of the poem does not wish for something specific for herself. Though the poem may be rooted in Clifton’s experience battling breast cancer she does not specify or narrow the scope of her wish to an easy passage through illness for herself alone, but rather a more general, universal wish for an easy passage for all who may read the poem. More than that it is a wish for the reader to have faith in their passage as much as it is for the ease of the passage itself.