caroline beasley-baker
Poet
Visual Artist
* this is not a poem or a painting — "this is not my beautiful house" — it's a portal *
Photo: CB-B 2022
seafarer/2 a.m. and wide awake
tie me upright to the mast
of the ghost ship Benignity
whose absent captain
and crew transport each of us —
tucked safely in our bunks
below deck —
through the [blank]
of raw unknowing.
tie me to the mast . . .
do you see the sheen of glitter
— this cresting / thoughtless sea?
* . . . someone asked, so:
Benignity. A noun that means the quality or state of being kind, gentle, gracious, or harmless. It can also refer to a kind or generous act. "It's not a common word — considered rare and formal, it appears only about 0.1 times per million words in modern written English.”
In defense of the use of the word Benignity, aside from my loving the sound of the word in the context / its meanings and uses, it’s a formal and an old word and one that accomplishes a lot for a small poem. It’s the ship's name. It references the 'seafarer’ through time — it feels to me in its syllables like the rocking motion of a sailing ship. There’s the tradition of tying to the mast a là Odysseus in the Odyssey which is both a blessing (a benignity) and a curse in the thirst 'to know' above all else. It's a prayer both for kindness (benignity) and awareness in the face of the “[blank] of raw unknowing” . . . .
In simple terms, this is a poem for the insomniac. And the poem for me, with an assist from Benignity, turns time into place, one of my very favorite things.
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