A boat for my heart

from Context by Garret Potter

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Recorded by Mike McGee. Produced by Mike McGee and Garret Potter
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lyrics

A boat for my heart

I built a boat for my heart;
tried to send it to myself in the mail,
but the post office closed
when the storms came
and I had to carry it in my palms—
my heart,
my vulnerable.

God build a boat for my heart,
entrusted men to bring it to me,
in due time,
but the men got all the directions mixed up and varied--
confused assembly, confusing themselves;
I only got pieces,
that might make a boat,
that might be from God,
but might not.

I built a boat for your heart,
but you kept it inside,
wouldn’t come let it out, at the dock,
didn’t trust,
wouldn’t chance;
so I rowed it alone,
carrying nothing but my solitude—
me and the oars, o’er and o’er.

But my heart build a boat for itself
out of all the charred remains,
found them strewn about my sensory memory,
plucked them out of its sides and feet
and put them together to make new moments.
In the new moments,
my heart remembers how it never was but ought to have been.

It is a beautiful heart-boat
floating, sailing on the seas;
the wave-waters shimmer,
the moon is out,
it is rocking me to sleep.

Copyright © 2012, Garret William Potter.

credits

from Context, released October 7, 2013

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about

Garret Potter Ann Arbor, Michigan

Garret Potter has come from nine states and Japan to find himself a familiar name in the international Poetry Slam community. He is cursed with consideration which he has learned to turn into gifts: heart-pounding, mind-delving inquiries and observations on vulnerability, community, and sustainability—poems. He likes moments with new people, movies, and food, old friends, books, bikes, and forests ... more