Channel Markers

I set my course to find the sea.

Where will the channel markers be?

A guide between Mangrove’s appear

One in red and one in green.

Who plants these hardened timbers here?

Immortal minders of danger near.

Hinting at what it knows

Beneath the surface where nothings clear.

An opening begins to show

A broken patch where nothing grows.

A quicker route, should I try?

But who knows what lies below?

I stay in the channel and pass on by

The oyster bar beneath the tide.

My wake makes leaves wave good bye

I shall not let chance decide.

The backstory

My dad was in the final stages of his fight with cancer. Soon he would be gone. One morning before he passed I took the boat out and made my way through the inland waterway to find the sea. In the fog of the morning, my mind was searching for words to put what I was feeling into perspective.

Lost in thought, my boat lurched to a stop. I hit a sand bar. In my fog I lost focus on the channel markers. Those red and green guides placed to mark the channel and safe passage.

A Sunday morning ritual for me was a phone call to dad. Always early and always started with a “you up?” question from him. I think he thought the entire world was in his time zone.

Dad didn’t have much formal education. Yet, he had built a successful business and did so, in his words, by paying attention to people and life.

While he never really understood my vocation, I would still spill out a challenge I was facing or some, what seemed to me, impossible circumstance. He always had a word about the situation. Almost always, he asked a question, based on a deep perception about what all problems stem from, our human condition.

I never got an answer from Dad on what to do or which way to go. But I did get the right question to be asking.

So it is with channel markers. They don’t tell you which way to go. They only ask questions, “Do you know where you are going? If so, pass on the right of the red when returning from sea, etc.”

They’re drilled and driven into the mud by someone knowledgeable about what lies beneath.

While dad is now gone, and I deeply miss the Sunday morning calls, he left me the channel markers.

If only life was as simple as the inland route to the sea.

Everyone is an expert, monetizing channel markers placed by pundits, hucksters, and everyone in between.

How do you find the ones that are true, good, and lead to a beautiful life?

That is the question the poem asks.