Like Peter I know not where I’m to go
when others shy at mystery and seek
some safer savior whom they hope will speak
in parables that they already know.
I know too well the endless to and fro
of faith that’s strong except the times it’s weak;
but know like Peter that he whom I seek
has brought me to a place I can’t forgo:
I’m ever at the empty tomb, its gray
air cools my soul, its echo haunts my sleep.
I’m ever in my boat, the sun above
my body bare and warming on the day
I see a man on shore who calls and leap
into the water at the sound of love.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room.